Home School?

No other aspect of parenting taxes my personal reserves like having to provide oversight during homework time to my kids.

Looking over my daughter’s math book, I spotted an error. “Two plus five doesn’t equal eight, you need to check that problem again.”

She pouts; her eyes begin to water, “I’m stupid! I’m never going to get this, never never never!” She folds her arms and puts her head down on the table and wails.

Over the two years of helping this one with homework, I’ve tried various responses, soothing tones of reassurance, militant aggressive “you’ll learn it and you’ll like it” boot camp, incentive offerings that make me feel like a time share seller. “Add now and get this glorious peanut butter jelly cookie, fresh baked from the oven…add two and get an additional glass of milk, Vitamin D enriched to ensure that even though you are missing prime playing outside time by doing your homework, you won’t get rickets.”

I've even tried praising her every attempt. Because it made me feel vapid, I used song. Cue Perry Cuomo! “You know that doing your work is… Wonderful! It’s Wonderful…so they say…” She'd humph, bury her blonde head on the table and refuse to move. But then, it might have been my singing.

Research within my own home has revealed all approaches equally ineffective, so now I just stay with the time honored, “I’ll get back to you.” when this happens.

“Do you like my essay?” My eldest daughter brings me her first draft. The writing is excellent but the spelling makes it hard to read. I praise her use of words and turn of phrase effusively as she beams. Then, I gently offer to underline the wrong words so she can look them up.

A cloud appears on her face, she draws in a deep breath and screams. “I can’t spell alright? It’s just too hard!”

“I know you can do this.” And I hand her the dictionary
“I don’t want to!” she shouts tearfully and stomps off.

Now this one, I know. She’ll huff, she’ll puff, she’ll pout up and down but in the end, she’ll fix the errors.

The first one had forgotten her pout until the sister’s response reminded her, “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be upset.” She reboots her sad face.

Buying time, I check on my son.
“How’s it going?”

“RRRahgh.”
Having to read assigned books for school has reduced his verbal expressive skills to annoyed and angry.

“You know, I loved Charlotte’s Web when I was in third grade.” I started.

“Humph! That’s because YOU WERE A GIRL!”
“Am.”

“Whatever! RRRAGHH!” and he thrust the book back in front of his face with a scowl.

O for 3.

I don’t remember fighting this hard with my parents over homework, although I do remember getting poor grades for what felt like forever until I figured out what the teacher wanted. It involved actually paying attention. Who knew?

“I don’t like the book!” my son was insisting. I tried sympathy. I told him about hating “Lord of the Flies.”
“That book sounds cool! Can I read it instead?”

“No.” Ack! Conversation veering out of control. Going in very wrong direction!
“Why not?”

Think fast! Ummmm…..“You’re not old enough.”
“Do we have it?”

Knowing that if I say yes, there will be a wild gleam in his eyes as he then spends the time that should be allocated to discovering the lyrical joys of E.B. White to find the verboten tome that epitomizes adolescent male rage run amok, I swallow and answer honestly, “I don’t think so anymore.” It is vague enough to cause disappointment. I know in a moment, the spark to be contrary will be extinguished by the return to school work.

“I still don’t like this book.” He explains, thumbing the pages.

“That doesn’t matter. This is the book that was assigned. This is the book for the project. Here is the rubric. Just answer the questions.”

Reading the actual assignment for what oddly feels like the first time, he discovers he can make a 3-D poster instead of a report. Suddenly, Charlotte’s Web rocks as he breaks out the scissors, construction paper and glue.

The fourth child is nowhere to be seen. She has used the commotion to escape to the basement. It takes every fiber of parental discipline I have to call down to her to return. I discover she’s been spelling the words for her older sister. They both give me a mild look of, “and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you and your meddling!” before sitting down.

Meanwhile, the pouter has returned to coloring and may be safely redirected to math once her masterpiece is completed. She bolts through it like a champ and gushes, “This is easy! I’m really smart in math. You were right Mommy!” complete with a very earnest warm hug. Melted beyond my own willingness to admit, Perry unbidden comes back into my head to finish the song.

“It’s wonderful…so they say.”

Why We have an Artificial Tree

I got tagged for a blog chain, which means I write about something that has something to do with what the last person wrote about in her blog (Thanks Ello!), she wrote about Christmas shopping and it's traditional insanity. I decided to go with the insanity that comes from getting the Tree...

When we first got married, we lived in New York City and had a dinky little cute live tree for our first Christmas. When we lived in a bigger apartment in Houston, we decorated the live ficus tree. When we moved to Maryland, we finally decided, we’d get a real Christmas tree. It was a very snowy winter and my husband had found a “Cut Your Own Tree” place, meaning we’d pay for the privilege of doing all the work.

It was a crystal clear star filled evening as my husband, young son and I marched through the rows of carefully tended evergreens to find “Our tree.”
Finally, the right amount of bushiness, greenness and tallness had been agreed upon, and the fun of welding an ax began.

For the first five minutes that one holds an ax, there are simultaneous sensations in the experience. There is the thrill of having a very sharp weapon (I can take on a bear!) and terror that somehow, someone is going to get hurt and you’re holding the ax. (Oh look, a bear!)

Chopping Wood looks like clean organized manly work. There is a rhythm to splitting wood, to chopping trees, and all the movies and fairy tales indicate that this is something men do with aplomb when not rescuing women from prisons or wizards or castles or something. My husband swung the ax. It hit the tree.

A little physics lesson here. Force must be distributed. Hitting a tree is like having a car accident with a tree. The force travels up the ax, into your hands and wrists and even jars your teeth if your feet are not set. Okay. We set the feet. We swing like a baseball player. Chop. Chop. Chop.

See, it’s easy. Well, it’s easy to watch. Then we watch. Watching someone chop down a tree is…dull. “It’s cold.” My son whines (He’s three). He’s right but I’m trying to stay with the mood here. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. It is taking a very long time. The wind blows. Chop. Chop. “Can I have a go?”

“Sure.” I should have recognized the eagerness in his voice as a trigger. He picked up our son. “I’m going to go see the man about the rope. “

“You’re not going to watch?” I mean, I’m sure watching me chop wood is riveting viewing. Isn’t it?

“Well, we don’t want to be here all night.” He explained diplomatically.

“Point taken.”

I line up my feet. I square my shoulders. Chop. I missed the spot. Chop. Chop. I almost got it. Chop. This hurts. Chop. Chop. My feet are cold. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. I’m stuck. The ax is stuck. I’m stuck. It’s really stuck. I’m afraid to pull it out. I’m stuck here in the snow waiting. Now the tree seems less perfect to me.

I stare at it hard. Something stares back. There are spiders. Christmas spiders in my tree. We’re done. I’m done. I follow the snow prints. “Pay the man to cut down the tree.” I bark when I get back to the stand.

My husband is one step ahead, he’s already paid them and of course, the guy goes out there with a chain saw. “Where is the ambience in that?” I ask you?

Telling my husband about the spiders, he assures me that the spiders will be driven out of the tree by the drive on the freeway. I admittedly didn’t inspect but prayed he was right.

The tree wouldn’t fit in our front door so I ruined a good electric carving knife cutting it down to size. I mean it’s kind of like a chain saw and I didn’t own an ax. I freaked when one of the tree’s eight legged citizens came onto my hand as I cut. “You told me they’d be blown away.” We spent a few nervous minutes –all either of us could tolerate, searching for more arachnids. I issued a proclamation to any remaining squatters. “Attention spiders! No mercy unless you can spell in your web: Peace on Earth!”

Finally, it was up, watered, decorated to within an inch of its life and glistening. I breathed a sigh of Christmas contentment. The tree listed. Then it fell. We picked it up, swept the floor of broken glass ornaments, redecorated and reattached the tree to the stand. It fell again.

My husband drove to a local store that was open late while I put our son to bed. He returned with a larger stand and we rerepotted the tree in the stand and screwed in the sides tight. He put a brick inside the stand to give the stand a fighting chance against the tree. It fell a third time. It was Christmas and our tree was imitating the Stations of the Cross.

And so we had our first REAL Christmas, like so many families before us, where the tree was propped by fishing line at the top to ensure that Old Tanembaum with it’s lovely branches wouldn’t crush our son as he admired the remaining ornaments. I told him the spider webs were just an organic form of tinsel.

Merry Christmas!