Yesterday we finished too late to paint (this is sounding too familiar). There's a recurring theme in this family--fun things always get dropped off the list at the end of the day. So today, for a radical change, I decided we'd start painting right after breakfast. The painting part was fun. However, once we got into the regular school work, things just took a dive.
Chee-Chee has always been language-arts-challenged. At 9, he cannot spell a simple word to save his life. I was dictating a sentence for Chee-Chee to write when something just snapped. I don't know which one of us gave up first, whether it was him refusing to write another letter, or me tiring of dragging out another second. I snatched and shut his writing book. I wanted to scream, to cry, to throw something. I was ready to give up.
I locked myself in my room for more than an hour. I was tired. Tired of feeling like a failure. Tired of wrestling with a mountain. Tired of facing daily the weakness of my beloved son. I could have cried, but I didn't. I let anger mask my frustrations and despair instead.
As if in response to my hour of need, around 2pm the sun shone out. It's the first I'd seen of the sun in days. I decided to take the boys out for a walk along a creek-side trail. The boys took their scooters and had fun racing back and forth while I got some needed exercise. After the walk, I felt much better.
In the evening, Chee-Chee showed me he could do long division, albeit not according to the traditional method. I was trying with no success to explain the steps: multiply, substract, drop the next digit, when I realized he knows how to do it without all the intermediate steps. Why, isn't it my goal to get him to speed through the steps eventually? Why stick with the technicalities? It's not as if he'll have to show his work to a math teacher! I relented and guided him through his way of doing things. In hindsight, I'm glad of that sudden clarity. I think God knows how much I needed it.
It was somewhat of a relief to me that he is getting over that hurdle. Perhaps someday he'll get over the big hurdle of spelling. I don't know. It's hard when you're in the middle of the fog to think you'll ever get out of it. I'm glad we took a walk, though. God took away the gloom in my heart and allowed me to finish the day on an up note. For that I'm grateful and am ready to try again tomorrow.
Recommended art lesson DVD (we got this from the library):
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment