two teeth lost within five minutes of each other;
the Tooth Fairy had a busy night
Wordless Wednesday: It’s a double
February 23, 2011
FollowExercisus Interupptus
February 16, 2011
The other morning, one of my kids was having a fit over something or other, turned to me and yelled, “You are soooooo FAT!“
Ouch, kiddo. You know where to hit me where it hurts.
I haven’t been exactly the picture of health this winter. Too much grazing, too little (read: none) exercise, too much “oh, I’ll just finish this up instead of saving leftovers”.
Too much top to this muffin, if you know what I mean.
But, it was my child’s angry words that hit me like a slap. I guess not looking at mirrors all winter doesn’t mean I’m invisible. Other people can see what I’ve been trying to ignore. And while I think her “fat” description was a bit excessive (“puffy” is better), it is getting me to rethink how I want to look come June. I don’t want to carry this extra 15 pounds into the summer.
So tonight I decided to start exercising again by taking a few baby steps back toward fitness. Husband is out late, but I figured the kids, at 6, 7 & 10, are more than capable of getting ready for bed while I hit the exercise bike for a paltry 20 minutes.
Five minutes in: “WAH!!!!!” followed by sobs and cries of agony. Jilly had run into the back of D’s head and smashed her nose. I paused the bike, put ice on her nose, kissed her head, and sent her on her way.
Pedal, pedal. Five more minutes pass. “WAH!!!!!” followed by cries and screeches of agony. D had tripped entering his room and whacked his head and knee into the door frame. Pause bike, administer first aid, kiss head, hop back on bike.
Ten more minutes pass relatively uneventfully but then I decide to push my luck and do a 15 minutes “walking” video (I’m pretty sure Jillian Michaels would bitch-slap me for this). Five minutes into it, a morose Belly slithers into the room like a Dementor and sucks all the joy out of the room with her pouting.
At this rate, maybe I should just buy bigger pants.
Breaking up is hard to do
February 10, 2011
My husband isn’t the first guy I dated (sorry, honey), so I know a thing or two about failed relationships—those tension-filled moments toward the end. The avoidance, arguments and angst that come with the ending of something that was once so beautiful and fun.
I am starting to feel like homeschooling is my dying relationship.
Every day I vow that things will be different: We will wake up and have a good day. I won’t raise my voice before breakfast. I won’t sigh heavily (or worse, cry) when things aren’t going according to plan. We will finish early and then lie around and read or bake or play, not run off immediately to an appointment or lesson because “school” has dragged on and on and on.
As if sensing they are near a wounded animal, the kids’ behavior has gotten worse; it’s like they are trying to finish this failed experiment off. The bickering, the name-calling, the outright refusal to do work is making me question my competence as a teacher. As a parent.
When did this all go from pretty great to unbearable?
I know February is a sucktastic month to be a teacher—it is probably why there is a school vacation week planned in the public schools—-maybe everyone is ready to jump ship? But, I’m not sure if this is just the regular February blahs or a sign of something bigger than what a week off from school can fix.
Today I asked my second grader if she’d like to try public school for the rest of the year. She said yes. I’m not yet sure if this is the right thing to do because I‘m not sure the next relationship (with the school system) will be any better than the one we’re in right now.
And I don’t want to spend the rest of my days wishing we had stuck it out with the “relationship” we’re in right now and not given up when things went downhill. My oldest says it in a way that breaks my heart:
I don’t want to give up on you, mom.
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Before my phone starts ringing, let me say that we are not 100% sure about sending any of the kids to school at this point. Something has to change, though, for this to work in the long term—-it may mean leaving the virtual school or leaving homeschooling entirely—or maybe we’ll find our groove and be ok. We’re committed to this virtual school through June, and after that, we’ll reassess what our options are.
