Eggs

Back when I was in high school, the fun project of the year was the baby project.. I am sure you have all seen it.. The high schooler gets to carry around a raw egg for week while naming, and loving and journalling all about the experience of having a baby. My kids have looked forward to that project ever since starting high school and their teachers told them they would be doing it. Smirk never got to do this.. The school either didn't find it valuable or didn't have the funds to buy eggs... Who knows but she missed it... But now in Grin's sophomore year she gets to do this project, but the school district must have won lotto...

Grin's class gets to use this....
These little electronic buggers are programed to go off every hour... They cry and you have to take a key ring and insert the correct key into the babies back... Grin wants the B or E as her choice of baby... The school only has 10 of these so the kids are only required to do this exercise for 24 hours (THANK GOD).

I have two issues with this project... What is wrong with an egg?? What happened to imagination??? I had to make up what I did with my baby.. Did I hold it, what time did it wake up, what did it eat...Then I had to carry it around all day at school in its little decorated easter basket and ensure no clumsy oaf of a football player bumped into me and broke little Emily (I even remember its name)...

Granted this did not in any way prepare me for having my own children...Nor did it force me to wake up in the middle of the night to ear piercing squealing... However, I did learn from the project. I learned that I did not want this responsibility at the age of 15!

The second and far bigger issue is....GRIN CAN SLEEP THROUGH A HURRICANE!!! (I know this, as last night she was sleeping on the telephone, she kept hitting with her toes so it beeped... I got up to go find the source of the crazy beeping and found it under her blanket..Did she move when the noise sounded.. No it took me patting down her bed like a cop checking a suspect to wake her enough to tell me it was on her left foot, which it was no where near)
So tonight when she brings little Andi Royd home, she is going to fall fast asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and who will have to get up to "care" for the little plastic encased computer? Yup, that's right... You guessed it... ME!! She wanted to do this project over the weekend, so she would have more time to bond with her bundle of microprocessors, but since you have to sign a contract stating you would pay $300 for damage or destruction of baby, and they have a chewing, slobbering beast at their father's house, I did not want to risk it...

I think the school should go back to the days of imagination and let them figure it out how to take care of the kid on their own. Or better yet, for the same amount of money, they could invite a real & baby in, pay for the mom to go to the day spa down the street for treatment while the juveniles each take turns taking care of baby..... That one would be fun to watch!!!

All kidding aside, I do like the intent of this lesson as we do have a teenage mom in the circle of friends that hang out at my house. And I would like to smack this teenage mom every time she brings her now 8 month old baby to my house at night with no socks on her little feet. But I really dont think that a mechanized baby would have prevented this child from having her own child... Maybe I am wrong and this exercise will do some good for the kids who take it seriously....