One day at a time

Day 54: Detention and Doughnuts

Part of me is laughing at the version of myself who thought yesterday was as bad as this week was going to get.

That part of me started poking holes into my sound argument in the wee hours of the morning, while I sat on the couch with Jordan, who was once again woken by aching gums in the throes of teething just before 1 a.m., and couldn’t settle back to sleep until almost 4 after a few hours of tossing and turning, sitting upright to try to play, squirming, whining, giggling, and poking a tiny little finger right into my eyeball. More than once.

It was a long night.

This same sweet babe was awake by 6:15 this morning and super-charged with simultaneous joy and temper. Toddlers are an enigma.

The noises she’d made during the night, every time I tried to get her settled back into the crib, hadn’t woken Hannah completely but definitely roused her enough to disturb her slumber, and of course Jordan couldn’t be awake without her faithful big sister to chat with this morning, so they were both early risers.

I thought Hannah was okay. She was working away at her journal when I got back from delivering Jordan to the dayhome and had diligently drawn a yo-yo and written “I see a yoyo” on the line below the illustration.

There was a bit of push-back when I pointed out her Ys were backwards, and also didn’t stretch long enough (think of little, oddly-drawn Vs), but she corrected them with a smile and set to her second page with the letter J.

And it was fine, until she decided she wasn’t good at drawing jellybeans and therefore couldn’t possibly draw anything else that started with J, no matter what we suggested. I gave her the option of taking a break to take photos with her tablet or do something else, but she settled into stubbornness – legs crossed, arms folded, head down, full-on pout, eyes in slits, and violent head-shaking at any suggestion made by anyone.

I drew the line at the yelling.

Hannah went into detention while Mom had a conference with the principal of homeschool (read: drank another cup of coffee and put her headphones in to focus on work for a few minutes while the five-year-old worked out her issues in time-out).

An apology, and she was back at the counter for round two. The KO came even faster this time – she didn’t want to hear all those suggestions again, no way. Again with the yelling. Back to her corner.

Meanwhile Christian, who was busy making homemade baked doughnuts (yum!) on the other side of the island, decided this was the right time to start talking back to Mom when she told him how to properly measure butter. A silly thing to get riled up about, right?

In typical teenage fashion he started muttering under his breath at me, so he got lines for talking back to the teacher.

Ten minutes later, both were smiling, Hannah had sketched and coloured a jack-o-lantern and written her sentence (she even sounded out and spelled “jackolantern” herself, which was a moment of pride). Other than some bickering over the board game neither of them wanted to lose this afternoon, I haven’t heard much else from these two today.

It continues to blow my mind, how children can change their attitudes and moods like southern Alberta weather in the spring. Sunny one moment, stormy the next, hot then cold, maybe with a bit of a breeze to catch you off-guard.

I’m glad I’m the only one working this weekend. They need a break from homeschool and I need a break from being teacher/mom/reporter. Two jobs will be enough for the next two days, thank you very much.

Remember Monday, when I thought this week was off to a great and tranquil start?

Silly girl.

Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca

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