The eight-year-old was complaining about their homework, which just involved writing down one thought about something they’d read in class.
They claimed to have no thoughts on it. Whatsoever.
So I asked what it was about.
They didn’t know…
The story had “lizard” in the title, so I asked if there was a lizard.
The child begrudgingly agreed that there was a lizard.
I pushed on: did the lizard do anything? Did it say anything?
The child admitted it was a talking lizard…
Progress!
So, I asked if the lizard talked to anyone. Maybe the lizard only talked to itself?
Finally, the child admitted after all this cajoling, “The lizard talked to a porcupine. I’ve never talked to a porcupine.”
This was literally all the assignment asked for!
As the 8-year-old wrote down the two things the assignment asked for—something that happened (ie. lizard talks to porcupine) and their thoughts on it (ie. they’ve never talked to a porcupine)—my spouse suddenly pulled out his guitar and began singing what the child was writing…
Once Daniel finished singing, I scribbled down a bunch more lyrics about this bizarre triangle of a porcupine who will talk to a lizard, but not the singer.
This is the story of how our kid did their homework, and it caused us to write a song.
Maybe we’ll record it later.