Homework Blues

So here it is 8:15 on Friday morning, almost ready to walk out the door, when Sid sidles in the room and begins "Now don't get cross mummy..." and right away I start to feel my blood pressure rise, but maintaining an icy calm, I ask with some trepidation "What ?". This is accompanied by Grady's sing-song voice from the bathroom "You're in trouble".  He sounds positively gleeful, is it any wonder Sid pummels him as much as she does ?

It turns out Sid has a French assignment - 2 page dialogue - due that morning. She has had a week to work on it and had totally forgotten. Despite her request, that I not be, I am in fact livid. I had asked Sid several times this week if she had any homework, and the answer was always in the negative. When I point this out to her she gets all huffy and rejoins "You only asked me if I had homework, you didn't ask me if I had French homework, that's different."  Seriously, now it's my fault because I didn't list every freaking subject that she might possibly be doing ?

Why did it have to be French ? Any other subject I could do, but French? Even Grade 4 French, definitely not my forte. She hands me the dictionary and I start translating and dictating. The first line is "What's that?" OK, easy start, not too bad. Next line "It is bacon" OK, not sure where this is going. Try "That bacon is burnt let's get another slice".  WTF ? What kind of dialogue is this ? Why is she talking about bacon ?  What happened to "I see the cat. The cat is black. The cat is on the mat" - that I could handle, but "Lets get another slice of bacon ?" is way out of my league.

Lindsay has already left for school so time to tap into Grady's brain power, but he is only part way through his weekly dump (don't go there) so now we are engaged in a three way dialogue through the bathroom door.  Hard to hear at the best of times, but especially so when his sentences are punctuated with grunts. Probably not for the last time, I am regretting not paying more attention in high school French which I failed spectacularly with a "U", meaning my exam result was so poor it was ungraded. Not my finest hour. 

With the joint effort, we managed to complete the dialogue, although I'm sure if it makes any sense in either language !