Community Voices for Health

By: Cheryl Maguire

After a major decluttering of the house (see post), I found this gem of a picture my son drew in first grade.

Here’s the story related to it:

In first grade at my children’s school, they celebrate the 100^th day as if it were a momentous occasion. In some respects it is, since they actually go for a full day (there are probably about 15 days off or half days before this day). This celebration involves me “assisting” them to find 100 items of something to bring into their class. Any suggestions I made are rejected for one reason or another.

“How about 100 pennies?”

“No, that is what Katie is bringing in,” said my daughter.

“Why can’t two people bring in the same item?” I asked.

“Because I don’t want to.” My daughter retorted.  Well, that sounds like a good reason.

“How about 100 pencils?”

I am not even sure if we own 100 pencils, but when your ideas are constantly shot down, you just start spewing anything which pops into your head.

“No, that is what Tom is bringing in,” my son claimed.

Since I’m the proud mother of twins, I have two children that need to complete this project and both of them seem to be relying solely on me, without contributing any ideas on their own. After about an hour of this insanity, they finally settle on crayons and Cheerios.

When they came home from school that day, both of my kids had a sheet of paper stating, “When I’m 100” and they had to write a sentence and draw a picture of what they envisioned their life to be like at 100 years old.

My daughter wrote, “When I’m 100, I’ll still be alive, I hope.”  She drew a picture of a woman with white hair and a cane. It seems like a reasonable expectation.

My son wrote, “When I’m 100, I will be lying in a bed. I would be in a nursing home. And I would need a wheelchair.” His pictures displayed the wheel chair, him lying on the bed and it looked like a heart rate monitor by the bed, so apparently he may also have some sort of medical condition. It appears he is not much of an optimist.

I laughed so much at his bleak outlook (normally my kids bring home pictures of sunshine, rainbows and flowers), it almost made up for the 100 item project.