Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Big Bad Word

Hello there great big blog world!

Its been a while.  I know.  It wasn't you, it was me.  It is just so busy around this house. 

This is the second semester of homeschooling. 

And Mercy is just as busy as ever.  She rolls all over the living room floor, or the classroom or the playroom or any other place you want to lay her down.  Its more a of side to side scoot then anything else.

Melodee is in the second grade.  All attitude and sassiness.  She actually is beginning to like homeschooling so that is good.   However, she is crafty in ways to try to get out of her work.  As we all are I suppose.

Malachi is still just four, even though at times he seems at least ten because of his size.  His attention span would rival that of a goldfish in its shortness.  So letters aren't quite coming along but he likes numbers so we go with that. 

The best lesson that I learned lately is that one word can ruin a whole day.  For instance, I spend an hour the night before, getting school ready and a bit in the morning.  We have a great day.  We do flag salute, say our little house poem, get in math and then BAM, here it comes, the bad, bad word.  Melodee pretends she doesn't know the word "the."  Now, we both know she knows this word.  And I look at her and say:

"C'mon!"

That is the bad word.  It's not the word itself, because if i said it sweetly, then its all good.  But I said it angry, because I would like to get on with our day too.  And you can see it in her face.  She's frustrated and I'm frustrated and Malachi decides to destroy something and there goes the day I set up to love on my children. 

Because, in my frustration, what I am really saying is:

I care more about my feelings than yours.

I care more about getting on to the rest of the day's tasks then doing this with you

And mostly:

I love ME more than I love YOU right now.

So it leads me to the one word we hate to use the most.  Because it means we have to admit we did wrong.  And it goes like this:

"Sorry"

It can't erase the bad word, but we can start over.  When I ask her if she knows the word she says yes but she wanted me to read it.  This is okay.  If I can reign in my temper and get through these silly times, we will both be better for it.  So this homeschooling isn't always about teaching them, but also teaching me.  First on my schedule for learning?  Patience.