What Mom can compete with the Evil Twin

I talked to my sister last night and she came up with Evil Twin Mom title.

Yesterday was a a rough homeschooling day. One where everyone ends up crying and the principal is called in. I had to run errands in the afternoon and It's never fun when you have to bring school with you. I was having one of those days where I could tell the child was imputing some hurt or pain on to me.

Foolishly asking "WHY are you being this way????" only brought more grief to Mama.  Finding myself begin manipulated by the child yet again. while I'm driving  It just made me so doggone mad! So I did the safe thing and pulled over, parked in the shade and said "Look I pulled this beat right over!  Were gonna sit here for a bit so Mama can cool off."

I then went back to Karyn Purvis's scripts cause when we fail, it's best to just go back to the beginning and try again. Sweet Potato is so worth working though all these issues she's got.

I asked the age old question that always works.. "What will make this better?"  silence
"Do I need to apologize for something?
silence
but I wait for it..
and
Wait for it...

She looks at me and says "You won't like it."
Me: "I got big shoulders."

Long story short She has been carrying around a chip on her shoulder all day because I was mean.
You see She asked me (my evil twin) in her imagination, if she could do something.
My imaginary (evil twin) self told her "No". Wow she's got one wild imagination! Glad to see it developing after all these years. 

I told her to ask me the "real" Mom in the car with her at that moment.
SW: But you will say No...
Me: Try me just try me...
SW: Can I do XYZ?
Me: Yes when your school is finished of course.
SW: I can
Me: Sure if you have free time.
SW: Oh..
Me: So  you have been mad at me all day for something I didn't do?
SW: I suppose... yeah..
Me: I'd like an apology.
SW: sorrrrry

I'd like to point out this is not a good apology. She is not using her words, she is not owning up to her fault.

At this point I made her redo the apology and I told her what I needed her to say. I knew that was the fastest and easiest way to get it over and done, so we could move on from this awful place we have been living in all day.

I'm reminded of Corrie Ten Boom, when she was asked for forgiveness by a Nazi guard. She didn't want to give it, but she did say the words because it is what God wanted for her. Then after she had said it, the feelings came.  I think this is really an important step to do in parenting. Even if she doesn't say it like she means it, right now. The feelings of being forgiven will come, I think that is most important, when you are angry at someone it hurts you far more than it hurts the person you are angry at.

CTC Unit 5 Week in Review

This week we had 2 digit X 2 digit math problems, I found a few holes in Little Miss Sunshine's math. I'm glad of all the techniques Singapore has to do the math mentally, but I have to admit I plugged her back into Rapid Recall, since each problem took 7 minutes to complete for either of my girls. One because she was just messing with me and the other because she was counting up or doing a number line for each individual multiplication step. I love Rapid Recall it is fantastic for training the children to learn the math facts. Also when the math facts become automatic it makes them so dog gone happy.  It is only 7 minutes a day and after 10 weeks if they have not achieved mastery you can repeat it.  So If your kid is quick they can memories all 4 sets of math facts in less than one year. 

Our Robert Frost paintings. 

 Sweet Potato although terrified of thunderstorms, continues to put lighting bolts on her paintings. Because mom they are super awesome and I love lighting bolts.  

My girls being Whirling Dervishes   

Whirl, Whirl ,Whirl    

Hey mom I'm not dizzy!

Keeping one foot flat on the floor really does help you not get dizzy!

Note booking pages

Science, Little Miss Sunshine made the clay and forgot she used up all the salt in the house so they had to share the one lump of dough. Little Miss used a tooth pick to make the tracks while Sweet Potato impressed them into the clay like tracks. They started to dispute amongst themselves as to which was the better technique.  I love using humor to pop them out of bad behavior. I hollered at them "Girls! Girls! you're both pretty!"  It's a phrase from Mega Mind, one of our favorite movies.  They both cracked up laughing. If you have never seen it here is a clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFXEcI_AA4

This week was tough, homeschooling often makes me frustrated and stressed, rarely does it make me cry. Blogging about it really helped, talking to my mom also helped. I often write posts that I never publish they are unfinished, or just pity parties. They act like a trigger journal for me. When I'm thinking straight I can go back and reread them I see patterns and what is triggering the bad behavior, I spot the days when I've been manipulated. It's very helpful and I can tell I have a lot of growing to do :-)

Thursday I worked in the cafe for the morning, I tasked them with getting all independent work completed before the afternoon. After lunch I set the timer, I controlled my desire to rabbit trail, and taught them the subject matter till it was done, or the timer went off. Anything not completed was declared "homework" and will be done after chores and before free time.  It was sooooooo freeing. After I had taught all my bits I got up took care of my sick Knight in Shining Armor, set aside my teacher hat and put on my helpful Mom hat.

I enjoyed Thursday far more than any other day this year. :-) No tears, no whining, no pity parties, no yelling! Thank's God for helping me. :-) he does answer prayers. 

Holding Firm

Today I asked Sweet Potato to do a character study on her reading book. I really can't do Dithor (Drawn Into the Heart of Reading) with her at her level of comprehension. Recently I found a book of folk tales from India, she has actually been interested in these. So knowing repetition is the key to her success, I decided to have her read these for her interest study and reading comprehension.

Yesterday she did a fantastic job of giving me an over view of the story in a written narration. Today I wanted her to pay attention to detail hence the character study assignment.  Over all she found plenty of details on the main character. Since we covered paragraph creation in grammar yesterday, I asked for a paragraph.  I'm always looking to kill 2 birds with one stone, not to mention repeat, repeat, repeat is so critical to her learning. I feel may be emphasizing the repeat thing a bit to much? 

Do you think she gave me a paragraph??? do you huh huh huh? Of course not!

In fact there were 5 incarnations of the words on the page but not in paragraph form.  I know part of my problem was I was tired. School went fairly well today, only a 45 minute hiccup over math. I thought she could  Do This With Out Me Being Present. (un-clench the teeth mama)  She did take it up to her bunk bed and close the door, I really felt I was free to have some Facebook free time.

She brought down a page of bullet points, all starting with the word Gopal.  I did remember to sandwich my criticism of not a paragraph and use pronouns, in between praise of handwriting and detail work. but man this child would not write it into a paragraph form. After the 2nd odd form of paragraph writing and reviewing how to write a paragraph.  It dawned on me... Shes playing me!!! Shaking off the afternoon lethargy I cleared my head and realized this is just more of the same.  Ohh she is good Miss Manipulation is poking her head out again.

Gratefully I didn't lose my temper or get mean (and say something stupid), I just realized she is not doing as I requested "on purpose." So I played along. I mean what is the fun of parenting if you can't turn the tables on em every so often.

I  kept sending her back to rewrite it from the beginning, in a paragraph form.  It took 6 tries before she decided she didn't want to do it again and chose to do it correctly.  After she handed in a acceptable paper I had her sit down next to me.  I praised it, corrected one mistake and said Good Job! and asked "Now tell me what made you choose to do it right this time?"  after some hemming an hawing she replied "because I didn't want to do it again."  Score!!!! one Mom child um well er never mind... lets not go there.  Wow Great choice ok now you have piano practice and chores then you can have free time.. Oh look Daddy is now home dinner in 20 minutes.

We have prayer meeting tonight and we try to go early so the kids have time to chat and play four square. She was 10 minutes late to dinner, 10 minutes late to doing her vest time, and 10 minutes late to prayer meeting.  It was so Awesome that she did this to herself.  Like Kevin Leman says, sometimes you just have to pull the rug out from underneath them and let them fall.  What you had no free time today? Oh well. What you missed chatting with your friends??? Sorry not my fault, you got to look in the mirror for that one.

Was I frustrated yes, but only because I hate to watch it. No one likes their child to fail. Although Sweet Potato seems to have turned it into a art form? hobby? lifestyle? I'm glad I stuck it out I'm hoping that standing firm, and letting her make poor choices and dealing with the consequences now. Will help her make better choices in the future.

Thanks so much for the positive feed back on the water color tutorials. I'm so glad you are all stepping out into new territory with your kiddos. I find this the fun-ist part of school!

My Campaign over at GFA is a bit neglected so if you want to enrich the lives of women who can't read you can donate here https://www.mygfa.org/gardenforsara/ 

OH one of THOSE days

Today was pretty good over all but  Sweet Potato was a bit of a bitter pill, and in fact has been just icky lately. She finished her school books last week for 5th grade (just not math) and I told her we would start on 6th in about 2 weeks. Now her sister finished the first week of May, and we had sundae's and a movie. Gotta love that new Almond dream frozen Ice cream like stuff So Sweet Potato could participate in that. 

Now for the last week I've been on bed rest,  Saturday I managed to get to the Holt Adoptee picnic and last the whole time, after which I retired to my cushie bed and fell asleep most of the rest of the day. Sunday I managed to make Church, nap and go to a quiet get together with friends where I basically sat and listened to a sweet 20 something. Oh was I ever that young?  My my my... So since I have been on bed rest I figured the girls would pitch in and help. Last week the girls did do some work but left the majority of it to their father.  I thought I had them better trained than that. I'm finding evidence of slacking everywhere today now that I'm not totally comatose. 

Icky Additude examples:

Mom finds all the hard boiled eggs needed for Picnic are barely soft boiled... Mom knows she gave clear instructions. Child even checked with Mom when water was not boiling to makes sure it wasn't really boiling... then went and turned off the water so it wouldn't boil. Because she wanted them to fail. Her heart at that time:  Mom is faking needing to lie down and should do her own work and I don't care or feel like doing her work.  Yup I faked almost blacking out and asked you to finish this terribly hard job of boiling water, my idea of a good time is being asleep all day. 

Oh how bout me trying to encourage friendships. "I know honi not a lot of people call you for play dates why not call some one and invite them over here." 

Instead of calling and making a plan she calls 5 minutes before she wants to play, In which her friend says No sorry I have plans for "Right Now"  or makes a play date without checking in with mom, and has to send her friend home because its just not working out for us at that time because she knew it was a bad time for mom. Seriously she knew! before hand! I got the reason out of her today your gonna love this "Because I'm not a good friend and I don't want to make it work, or act normal."  Well at least she got the whole marching to the tune of her own drummer thing down. 

Today I find that for the last week Sweet Potato has been purposely putting things in the wrong place... this is her idea of fun... The hiding got so bad last year I had to make a rule: I find "it" any "it your directly responsible for" in the wrong place, you loose a token... You don't want to loose all your tokens (3). I gave her grace I found 5 "it's" in the wrong place all at once and only took 1 token because she was down 1 already...

Yesterday while I was taking a walk.. well I wouldn't call it a walk more like a saunter mixed in with a stroll,  around the block trying the whole "side hug" "low body language" "ideal parenting thing" of walking and talking with her while she was in a snit.  It WORKED! The reason she was displaying classic maudlin teenage  behavior is *drum roll please* 

We weren't there for her GRADUATION CEREMONY.  

Aren't we horrible bad terrible parents OH MY! Ya know she home schooled I didn't know we did ceremonies for catching up in the summer because you are behind. Oh wait did I say that out loud... noo just in my blog.  OH do read on... read on... 

You see 3 weeks ago we started attending Irving Bible Church because they have programs for special needs kiddos, and purposefully minister to adoptive parents. So we thought we'd give it a go to see if it would be a fit for us. Maybe our kids would feel more comfortable because they would be one of a crowd of adopted kids...   So Sweet Potato was put in the wrong class the first week. She was properly placed in the 5th grade class the second week... and the third week she GRADUATED FROM HER SUNDAY SCHOOL! Wow woo hoooo amazing *can you hear the one hand clapping alone?*  it's a very zen moment.   

Yup she in a all day chip on her shoulder snit, because we were one of the many parents that didn't attend the 5th grade Sunday school graduation. It was described to me by the Children's Ministry guy as "We pray over them as a big group."   Not one word about parents can come and participate... last week her teacher said "Oh she did great!" not one word about "Hey don't forget to attend the class next week because your kid is graduating." And oh yes only a handful of parents came, arn't we Just awful parents leaving her alone and NOT COMING... Oh the drama of it all. Man it sounds like my 13 year old diary reads, Ahh now you know the real reason I never journaled as a kid. I'd reread my diary and say ugh that's just awful! I wrote that eeew... 

Talking to my Mom today she was giggling over the "drama" saying don't worry she will turn into a fine young lady when she is 16.  WOW mom I'm totally holding you to that!!! 

Don't forget my Reusable Grocery Bag give away is still going on 

http://gardenforsara.blogspot.com/2012/05/chicken-give-away-hey-free-stuff.html 

face book shares off of my page count too :-) as long as YOU share Xiaoyun's story and I can track back to you and find you so I can ship it, is all that is needed to enter. :-) 

I.D.E.A.L Parenting Baby Steps

Wednesday I really chose to pick my battles. Sweet Potato had yet another Doctor appointment. Yippie we get to go to the ENT weeeeeeeeee!!!  This was supposed to be a routine check up a just to make sure nothing is infected and her ears are clear of thick nasty fluid.  NOT!

Before we went the kids were reenacting songs from the Broadway Musical Cats. Little Miss Sunshine made cat tails "Like we did in China mom!."  Sweet Potato really does an excellent job of acting cat like. She can really emote feline.  So were 20 minutes to take off (leaving for the doctor) and the child is still in cat outfit.  I ask myself; is it modest?  check  Do I care that she is wearing a tail? nope Should I make her go out in public dressed properly? NAAAAAA.  I went out to my garden and checked on my peas and there were little leaves sprouting yeah!

I came back in unaware that in those few minutes Daddy picked that battle. And since she is a well trained child she said "Yes Dad" and took off her tail...  But sad to say her heart wasn't in the right place after that.  She used her actions to show her resentment.

13 minutes later I'm doing the last call shoes purses lets go to the ENT yippie! (they always have stickers and lollipops.) Can you believe it Sweet potato is changing her outfit... OH NO! this will take Forever (say it with a valley girl accent for proper effect).  Yup we were late to the Doctor and had to wait extra long.  Daddy was not a happy camper as we waved good bye 10 minutes later.

I took a longer view... its not my appointment its hers if she wanted to be on time she would have been. She is very smart when it comes to things like this. But what I do know is Dad + Late = Disrespect.  Then it all comes out at dinner. She was mad and wanted everyone else to be mad too. So the whole I have to Change  2 minutes before we have to leave was so on purpose!  Why?? because she couldn't wear the tail... Oh the Drama of it all *giggle* I just want you to all know I totally deserve and love this child :-) 

This was an excellent opportunity to use a redo, ask for a compromise, and talk about why we use our words not our actions to tell how we feel. Not a day I'd say we as parents "won" but a good day in practicing the pieces. As a step in our journey I'd say one of us stumbled and the other caught them. Marriage should be like that :-) Next time It will be my turn to fall down.

Practicing the change in tactics... saying Yes

I practiced saying yes today, I did notice a huge upswing in Sweet Potato's mood too.

Mom can I have some chips?
Yes as long as you drink 2 glasses of water.

Mom will you play a game with me?
Yes, let's play In a Pickle till someone gets 3 tricks. (see how I saved myself from a 3 hour game of Monopoly.) 

Mom can I have a cookie?
Yes, after you finish your orange.

Mom can I play Computer?
No baby, it's not here, but you can play DSI for 20 minutes.  Turned it into a yes... :-)


Mama's been feeling yucky today so Sweet Potato did take advantage of that to hide in her room and play DSI for an hour. Normally I'd be all freaked out by the screen time effecting her brain  ahhhhhh she's loosing brain cells... but since my modus operandi for Mama sick days is to plunk them in front of Qubo and hope their brain's don't fry.. I figured why have a hissy fit? I got a nap and quiet time and a shower!  SCORE! Her sister was practicing piano and I didn't hear the timer go off either.  I actually could see how she could truly have not heard it go off. Her school was done (mostly), she had baby sat for part of her school time too (woo hoo acts of service yeah!).  

So I just pointed out she was over time and as long as the undone chores got done ASAP, I'd not toss any penalty flags.  She almost fainted when I did that... the look on her face said "Mom are you feeling ok?"  well actually child I feel really yucky... so no I'm not feeling ok. LOL 
She said "Sure mom right away." and then happily ran out to pick up dog poo...   Little Miss Sunshine was as mystified as me in Sweet Potato's happy attitude toward poo patrol.  "Mom this is not normal." was heard  to come out of her mouth...

I passed them by later while they were playing piano and tickled both of them... Little Miss Sunshine laughed..  Sweet Potato said Ow ow ow ow... then she laughed.
I'm like "Oh sorry did I hurt you?"
SP: no Mom....
Why did you say Ow?
SP: I don't know...
Mom: can I do a redo?
SP: Yes please *Giggling* then I tickled them both again and they both laughed.

Lets see how this journey goes forward... but boy that In a Pickle game took it out of me... not!!