I've been home from work for nearly five months now, and even though I told myself I would put more of myself into my posts, looking back, most of them have been quick updates with pictures. So I am taking a few minutes (complete with kid interruptions) on this rainy day to ignore the dishes, laundry, and toys, to reflect on thoughts that have been on my mind and I always thought I'd have time to write them all down. With only two weeks of my maternity leave, I'd better write them down quick.
Last week Cooper came with me to attend school conferences. Many of my former students and parents have been wanting to see Cooper, and it was a way to spend time with him and also get paid for attending conferences. My wonderful substitute held him the entire time and put him to sleep each time she held him. Even the crankiest parents couldn't keep their mad going with a cute, cuddly baby in sight. Most of the parents know that Cooper isn't my oldest child, but I was always asked if he was my oldest, how old my others were, etc... I'm always asked if I'm going to have more children or "try for a girl". Complete strangers have no problems admiring my adorable children and asking these personal questions. After battling with my mysterious infertility last year, I hated being asked these questions, and have tried not to ask other people these same irritating questions. Last week when I was out with just Cooper and was asked the usual series of questions and was told that I was too young to have a seven year-old! A stranger thought I was only 20 years old! I was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and had my hair up in a ponytail.
Taking all three boys out to church, shopping, etc.. is so often overwhelming. It's not just keeping track of all three or keeping Cooper content, but the effort involved in keeping the peace and settling arguments in a reasonable manner in public. Having all three boys with me does get me lots of help from strangers though. I'm always asked if I need help carrying things out to the car or an extra set of hands. Some people even are extra nice and let me go ahead of them in line. The boys earned lots of compliments about how polite and well behaved they were this last week grocery shopping.
This fall I have learned about the flip-side of homework. As a teacher I have always assigned homework and have rationalized that all students can do the work I assign, it just might take some a little more time or focus than others. Colten has regular homework this year as a first grader. I always figured that I would be able to help my own kids enjoy school and see the importance of doing homework. I was determined that all my boys would be good students and homework just takes some practice to memorize and study. Colten loves school: recess, PE, music, math, and science; but he really struggles with reading and writing. I requested Colten's teacher this year not because she was the cool teacher to have, but because she was supposed to be a really strong reading teacher and I wanted all the help Colten could get. Little did I know how much help Colten would be needing at home! It is incredibly tough to motivate him to be interested in practicing his vocabulary words and I've had to get creative in how to help him remember words and spelling. Even with all my extra help and motivation (m&ms) Colten still continues to struggle with his reading and writing.
School was always easy for me and I was motivated by the need to learn new things. Carson is the same way I am, see, memorize, and love every minute of it. Colten is good at sounding out short words, but the English language has more exceptions than rule followers with words. This means that Colten is guessing most of the words he should know by sight and leads to lots of frustration. He can read a word correctly on one page, but not remember it again on a different page. He is good at using context clues (pictures) and inserting words he knows to make the sentence make sense. Good for pleasure reading but bad for timed homework reading. Being the homework "doer" at home makes me look at the work I assign students and wonder at the frustrations expressed by their parents. I've had to re-think my philosophy that all homework is possible, sometimes it just takes practice. Sometimes it takes more than just practice. With Colten and I, it takes knowing we've done the best we can with our antsy, anti-homework child and no amount of extra time or practice will make that 80% and 100%. Frustrating, but certainly eases the battles at the dining table. Now I need to find a way to get Colten to enjoy doing his homework and stop being so antsy.
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