I Had To Wrestle It From Her Hands

Little Miss has the attitude in life that if you can do it, she can do it better. While this will serve her well later in life, it's also the source of much frustration as the younger sister. Understandably, she doesn't get why it's hard for her to do things that her bigger brother (and Mommy and Daddy) can do so easily.

Reading is a perfect example. While she could read if she tried, the fact that she's the only one in our family struggling with it means she doesn't even want to try. If she can't be the best...

We've been working our way through the Bob Books (which I highly, highly recommend to anyone who is trying to figure out how to encourage a child to read and get more comfortable doing so). I feel like we've been reading them for what seems like years. She'll go through fits and starts where she wants to do them and learn to read and tries hard and then weeks where she won't even look at them because they're too hard and she doesn't know and why won't Mommy just read them to her?

I know she won't go to college not reading, though, and she'll figure it out at her own pace, so I don't worry about it or push her to read the books when she isn't into them. That said, she knows the rule in our house is that she can't get a library card until she has finished the Bob Book series.

Last night, I mentioned to her that her kindergarten class was going on a field trip to the library. Again. She asked if she could check out books if she had her own library card, and yes, she can. Her school has parents send in the cards, and then they manage book checkout at the library. It's pretty cool, and it's yet another reason why I love love love the school she's attending.

She thought about it for a moment before looking up at me. Mommy, I want a library card tonight.

Ummmm, ok? Well, Sweetie, you have homework we have to finish before we can read any of the Bob Books. And you do realize that we have to finish Set 5 and then the two sight word sets we have, right? That's a lot of books.

She nodded determinedly and lost the bad attitude about the homework she'd been moping about for the twenty minutes since she'd gotten off the bus. Within ten minutes, we'd finished all her homework - a genuine miracle.

Forty minutes later, we'd finished Set 5. The Sight Words books were all that were left. We were both delighted to discover that those books were super easy, Mommy. This is just easy peasy book reading and not more advanced than the Set 5 we'd just finished. I'm not sure how, but we just finished the last of the sight words books (there were ten in each of the two sets) before it was time to eat dinner.

Mommy, I finished them. All of them. I can read now. Let's go to the library right now! she exclaimed excitedly, bouncing in every direction around me.

Sweat Pea, we need to eat dinner. If you finish you dinner and we have time before bedtime, I will take you. Otherwise, it will probably have to be this weekend, do you understand?

Shockingly, she sat down and ate her meal with gusto. She drank her milk with nary a complaint (and ohhh now that we're back to rice milk, do we hear complaints on a daily basis, although adding cinnamon to it helps). We trooped into the car and the six degree night with a windchill south of sanity.

Little Miss proudly signed her name to her very first library card last night. She promised to take good care of the books she borrowed with her own card and to be responsible for any fines she might incur - although I'm pretty sure she didn't know what that last phrase meant. It didn't matter. She'd agree to give away her Lotso bear if it meant getting a library card at that point.

Once she had the library card, she held it in front of her like a beacon, proudly announcing to everyone crossing our path that she was the proud owner of a brand, new library card that she got just tonight because I can read! It was pretty cute. She bounced up the stairs to the children's area where she accosted a librarian to determine what books she should bestow the honor of being the first books to come home with her very own, brand new library card.

Two minutes later, she'd selected two Biscuit books she was confident she could read with no assistance from me, and we were on our way. She checked out her books all on her own using our way cool self-checkout technology.

(Ignore the tongue sticking out thing. She fell in school today and bit her tongue hard to the point she was sent to the nurse because the teacher couldn't stop the bleeding. It's sensitive, still, so she's been sticking it out in a misguided effort to get it to heal faster.)

Once the books were officially hers, I reached over to pick up her library card to put it into my wallet. No dice. She swiped it from beneath my fingers before I could grasp it. Mommy, that's my card, not yours. It took a full five minutes of discussing with her before she'd finally turn it over. I actually had to show her where in my wallet I kept Mister Man's library card before she'd agree that I could hold onto it for her because that is my very own card now, Mommy. Because I can read, and I finished the Bob Books, and I got my own library card. I can use it to check out books, and it belongs to me.

Welcome a new reader to our family!

Oh, and while you're at it, I finally set up a Facebook Fan page for my blog. It's way overdue. Go like me on Facebook if you would so I can get an official username - once I get enough likes. You can also follow me on Twitter, too, if you're so inclined.

How Not To Teach About Past Tense

Yesterday, I was working with Little Miss on her reading, as she's still not fully reading independently. Part of that is because she doesn't want to try, knowing that she's the only one in the family who doesn't know how to read.

After reminding her that once she learns how to read she'll earn her very own library card, she was once again excited about trying reading. And she's actually much better than she thinks she is. We're continuing to read the Bob Books, and she's starting to get into compound words.

We came to a book that includes several words with the "ed" ending. Since it isn't really pronounced "ehd" or something that's easy to explain, I decided to explain the concept of past tense, much like I explained the concept of the silent e and how it worked magic on the vowel earlier in the word.

So Little Miss, do you know what past tense is?

No, she muttered, pouting at me.

Well, the "ed" at the end of words shows that they are past tense. They happened before. Action words we've been reading have been in present tense, meaning they are happening now.

*Blank Look*

Think about it with this example. Today I jump. Yesterday, what did you do?

I don't know. I don't remember! she wailed.

Once I recovered and finally stopped laughing, I did get the concept explained to her. No no, Sweetie. I don't mean what did you actually do yesterday. I mean if you jump every day, today you jump and yesterday you jumped, and she is happily now reading her past tense words. She's even figured out the dreaded "ight" words.

Ummm and yes, she is wearing a swimsuit cover up over her clothes, why do you ask?

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I Feel Like A Heel

Today was not my best day. I didn’t intend for any of it to be bad, but sometimes you just know it’s a bad day, and you don’t do anything to ensure it turns around.

This morning, I dropped Little Miss at daycare after Mister Man’s bus came (early for ONCE instead of 10-15 minutes late, which meant instead of sitting outside reading, he was still putting his shoes on). As I see every single day when I am at the daycare, there is a car parked in the handicap spot. Well, mostly in the handicap spot anyway. He was parked somewhat sideways to ensure he took up most of two spots.

The daycare the wee ones go to has two other businesses in the complex. There’s a Christmas tree business in the building behind is and something generic on the close side of the building by the drive up to the complex. The Lexus parks in the spot closest to the drive with no handicap tags or sign every single day that I go there. Granted, it’s unlikely that the handicap spot is going to be truly needed by someone, but it’s still wrong and illegal (and obviously a pet peeve of mine). It isn’t like there aren’t other spots nearby. In fact, the non-handicap spot next to where he (and I assume it’s a man) parks is usually open.

So today, I looked up who does the police for that town, and I called them and let them know about the car. The woman I spoke to seemed irritated by the car being there and promised to send a car out to take a look. I feel somewhat conflicted about doing that, but I’m still going to look to see if the car is there when I take Little Miss to daycare on Monday.

But before I did that, I had a bad mom incident – completely accidentally, I swear. Mister Man asked for a bagel for breakfast. Since they’d both slept in somewhat this morning, and I knew that the bus driver had “promised” to be early today (as opposed to picking Mister Man up at 8:51 to get to a preschool 20 minutes away that starts at 9am after picking up two additional kids…), so we had to hurry.

I put Little Miss’s waffle in the toaster and quickly cut a bagel in half and put it in, too. Then I fixed some granola and yogurt for myself – oh, who am I kidding, everyone shares with me because it’s yummy. As they cleaned up the front playroom, I set the table with their milk cups and food, then called them in.

We were having a lovely conversation, each intend on eating our food. About halfway through his bagel, Mister Man broke it in half. It was then that I saw the outside of it for the first time. And realized that it had spots of mold growing on it. The bagels were purchased only four days ago, so I was definitely surprised to see the mold. I quickly grabbed the bagel. Then I thought about it for a minute. He only had about four minutes to finish eating, and I didn’t exactly have time to make him a new breakfast. So I ummmm improvised. I tore off the pieces of mold and gave him back the bagel to eat.

And then there was tonight…. I’ve always known that Little Miss was going to be the more difficult of the two children. She’s far more headstrong, and she seems to think the world revolves around her – no idea where she got that notion!

Tonight, as we were getting ready for bed, Little Miss decided to start acting up. As she took off her socks, she started rubbing them in my face. I politely explained that this was disgusting and that it wasn’t a nice thing to do. So she did it again, at which point she got the raised-eyebrow-you’d-better-stop-it now. So she threw the sock at me. As I was explaining that throwing things isn’t really allowed, she started kicking me (like she was swimming, not standing like kicking a soccer ball). When I asked her if she wanted to go to the naughty step, she said yep and ran to it. And proceeded to play on it and have a grand old time.

She thought it was a grand game every time I picked her up and put her back on the step. Finally, I asked her if she was going to stay on the step or lose Baby Coco. And I took had to take Baby Coco. When timeout was over, I asked her if she knew why she was on the naughty step. She insisted she had no idea and started kicking me again.

When asking her if that was an appropriate thing to do, she giggled and said yes. I asked her to stop and explained that if she didn’t start behaving, she wasn’t going to have time to listen to Timothy read a Bob book. She laughed, jumped off the naughty step and proceeded to start kicking again. No Bob book tonight for her (Mister Man, however, read one of the books to Daddy).

That’s when she turned on the siren, accompanied by the waterworks. She didn’t want to go to bed. She wasn’t tired. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to wear those pajamas. She didn’t want to get into bed.

Unfortunately, when she misbehaves, she doesn’t exactly get her way. She continued to scream and cry as the pjs went on, as I put her into bed, as she ran out of bed and back into the hallway, as I put her back into bed, as she opened the door and stepped across the threshold, as I put her back in her room…. It was over an hour before she finally stopped crying, but I knew that if I went in her room to comfort her or to check on her, that would only prolong it both tonight and in future nights. So I stuck it out.

Then the dilemma was whether I should go into her room and move her into her bed or leave her where she fell asleep. My husband and I discussed it for awhile. Finally we decided to go put her in her bed. But we were surprised, she’d put herself into her bed before falling asleep.

The worst part of it was that my mom called midway through the crying spell to check on the plan for tomorrow (her childcare day). She could hear Little Miss crying and wanted to know what was wrong. I explained that she simply didn’t want to go to bed, but it was well past her bedtime. My mom immediately went into the “Well, aren’t you going to check on her? What if she’s thirsty? What if she needs something?” mode, which of course is counterproductive. But now she’s all worried about my parenting of the wee ones. Hmm, coincidence that this is starting right after the return from Florida? I think not.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow is a better day all around. Of course, given that I’m headed into the office at 6:15 tomorrow, I’m not holding my breath. But I am going to bed so I’ll at the very least be well rested!