With only two more weeks of camp, and then a week off before school, the order of the school year can’t come soon enough.

The Monster, like many children, does better when there’s an established rhythm to his week.  He does better with the clearer order of the school year than he does with camp, and it’s showing as we’re trying to at least make a good-faith effort as school prep stuff.

When the Monster’s school year ended, his teacher – who will be his teacher again next year – sent him home with a packet to work at over the summer.  We’ve been very remiss on getting through the workload in an orderly fashion, and we’re now paying the price.  Now that we’re out of habit of doing the homework every night, he’s very reluctant to sit down and get it done.

I can’t say that I blame him.  I’d rather be sleeping on the couch, eating food, or playing with toys too.  And the bribery might otherwise work during the school year is like pulling teeth, since there’s so much else to pull on his attention.  Tonight, for instance, he was insisting on jelly beans (a new favorite) and then a cupcake (which he could see in the kitchen)… and did not want to hear from us that he had to finish the homework first before he got any reward.

On a positive, it doesn’t seem like he’s lost all that much in the academic sense over the summer…