Monday, February 27, 2012

Losing My Cool

I lost it today.

The Peanut was working on his school work.

The same school work he does every day.

But today.

Today.

He suddenly forgot how to write his letters.

All of them.

He just started making random shapes slightly resembling letters.
The x's are his.
Normally, this would be my cue to say, "let's take a break."  Because we both needed one.

Instead, I pushed on.

Because he was so close to finishing the book.

Just a few more pages and we could finish today!

So, we continued.

I continued to instruct.  "Stop at the dotted line and go down."  He went up.

And I snapped.


I yelled.

" Can't you listen ?"

He cried.

We stopped for the day.

Now, I wish I could take it back.  He has such a love of learning.  He just gets so excited when he discovers something new.  I try so hard to keep it fun for him.  The boy has his whole life ahead to start hating school work.  I want him to love it as long as possible.  Forever even.

Instead, he will now worry, that if he doesn't write his letters just right, mommy will get mad.

And he is only in Pre-school.

The fact that he knows all his sounds and picks out and reads words everywhere we go is amazing.  I certainly wasn't doing that at his age.  Am I really going to worry that he can't draw an "h" without making it look like a giant "n"?  He has years of practice ahead of him.  That's the point of practicing.  Isn't it?  If he had it perfect the first time, there would be no point in doing it over and over again.

So, tomorrow, we will sit back down.  We will begin again.  And I will laugh and smile and try to get my son re-excited about writing his letters.  However they turn out.