Homework time. The time where I've heard some mothers say they love because it gives them time to themselves, or time to do some laundry, or time to do the dishes, or time to have a pedicure... Not in this house!
We've sat down to read a challenging book for Dayton; just the right amount of challenge, not too easy, and not so difficult where he starts head butting me (and yes, I'm talking literally). The book is titled 'Wild, Wild Hair,' and it's about a little girl who's got some major knots in her hair... the kind that would make me want to shave her head if she was my daughter, poor girl.
Anyways... we get to the part where the author says that "her mother's fingers flew," (brushing and braiding the girls hair into twenty braids) when Dayton looked at me all confused...
"How did her fingers fly? Did they go on a plane?"
"Ummmm, no babe..."
"But why they say her fingers fly?"
"It's just an expression babe. It means that her fingers worked fast."
"Worked?"
"You know, brushed the girl's hair and braided it. Her mamma worked very fast."
"Why not say fast then?"
"To make it more interesting. It's a figure of speech."
"I didn't find it interesting at all."
"Lets finish reading, maybe it will get interesting soon."
Don't get me started on the part where the little girl is ready to "crawl out of her skin." We just can't get away from euphemisms. They're so common! Oh well. Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the choice of book sent home for home reading. I LOVE IT! While yes, Dayton struggles with euphemisms, the book gave me the opportunity to at least discuss them with Dayton, explaining what they mean. I even asked for the book to be sent home again because I wanted to see if Dayton would remember my explanations. Awesome practice for us.
We finish the book, and Dayton needs a break. This normally means a few very, very hard high fives for doing a good job. My hands throb after about eight of them, and I'm begging him to stop. Then we stand up and do a little victory dance. I'm not going to begin to describe it, it's just too embarrassing. The things us moms do to make homework interesting.
I used to read the book to Dayton first, then give it to him to read back to me. I thought I'd shake things up a bit by reading the book to him first, then taking turns reading from the book: I read one page, Dayton the next then me again... you get it, right? Bad move...
Routine, routine, routine! Rule number one that I thought we could just get around, but apparently not. Oooops. Oh well, worth a shot. I should have asked him first, lesson learned by mamma. Won't happen again.
After the super hard high fives and victory dance, we sit down again to do spelling. This week we're trying something new, I'm praying he's cool with it. We're giving Dayton a sentence to to study along with his spelling test. Just a short one. This little change he didn't seem to mind... whew! After an hour of this, we did more hard high fives... ouch for the mamma, giggles for the babe. Yes, I love him, and there's little punishment I don't put myself through just for him. Because I can be having the worst day of my life, and Dayton will give me a big hug and kiss and suddenly everything's all right with the world once again.
I've tried and failed at many things in life but I will NEVER stop giving 100% at being the best mom I can be.
Consider yourselves hugged,
Lou
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