Life

I keep typing and deleting. How do I even start?

It was a full on battle of the wills. James verses mom. Over one word. Mane.

He refused to read it.

I knew why and I wasn't going to let him win.

He loves to do his phonics and reading with me and we have a great time together doing it, however, when he decides that he isn't going to do anymore, he isn't going to do anymore. Period.  Different things make him decide to shut down on me.

*Doing it somewhere that he doesn't think is the place to do it, ie, in the car waiting for someone, in a church lounge during Christina's biology, outside on the porch, etc...

*Not doing it in the order he thinks it ought to be done.

*If I choose to skip a page to show him a concept explained better on a different page....

*Or, if he feels lazy and plain doesn't want to.

It doesn't happen often, but it is becoming more frequent and I can't really be in bondage to his whims. It just doesn't work.

I let him know that I was the teacher and he was the student and it wasn't up to him to decide what he will do or not do. Using deceit and pretending he was incapable was also out of bounds. And so, the battle ensued.

The word was  MANE there was a picture of a horse with long tresses. Above was the word MAN and below the word MANE. We had been discussing how the e on the end make the vowel say its name. It's not a very new concept. We've been talking about it for a week.

He said "man" everytime. We went over the LONG vowel sound of A. We talked about his name and the long A sound. I called him Jams instead of James to make a point and that only made him the angrier. Read this word as MANE.... and he would say, "MAN".  He was utterly disrespectful. I disciplined and did everything I knew how and he would not.

Steve came home from work and worked him him and through the whole, entire scenerio the kid was oh, so bull-headed, disrespectful, and obstinate.

I normally have low blood pressure... !!!!

He finally said it for Steve and I just wanted to be sure this battle was over and I asked him to read it for me and. he. would. not.


And so we continued to work with him.

He finally did.

Steve and I decided we won't battle like that again. We'll just assign hard labor until he yields. I don't have the energy to do this and I cannot win and if Steve isn't home, then what? It's also ugly. Very ugly. He was not completely out of control as one might expect, but acting as though we were asking the unreasonable and there was a lot of self-pity, crying and stubbornness and disrespect.

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While I was at my appointment Vanessa took the twins to walk in the park. This was the twins' second walk of the day. So they probably got in two hours of good exercise. After my appointment I ran to Costco and Vanessa let them play on the monkey bars and stuff. Three or four little boys invited James to play tag with them. As it turned out he was always it because he wasn't fast enough. He was standing on the playground equiptment platform when all of a sudden one of the little kids said, "Put your hands up!"

He lifted his hands and this kid pulled a toy gun on him. James went ballistic. He SCREAMED all the way down the slide and went running for Vanessa screaming hysterically. It was end of their good time. We don't have tv and we don't do guns. We're vegetarians so my husband doesn't hunt. We can't even legally own a firearm considering we are not Americans. So, whatever James knows about guns and the danger he associates with them, he learned before ever he moved here. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

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Last night was opening night of our English Language School. It was VERY, VERY well attended. More people showed up then were registered. Everything went super well and the whole church was humming with activity.  The children I had in my group were great kids and very easy to please. They loved the choir part of our program. I was kind of concerned that the 10 year old might think my craft was a little lame.... OH, NO! I guess they don't get to do this kind of stuff much.  Even the boys ate it up.

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Magnesium. We figured out that magnesium was helpful to Missy quite by accident. I use it for me and well, Missy has to drink a lot of water and if she doesn't get enough things go South quite quickly. To encourage her to drink sometimes we change it up a bit and give her a vit. C packet, or a little lemon juice in her water, whatever. The magnesium tastes good in water and we discovered it keeps her regular without the use of miralax or prune juice and all those other wonderful things. Anyway, it has taken time. A couple of months of just a little magnesium in her water first thing in the morning to make a difference, but we see it now. And we definitely see it when she doesn't have it. You can look it up. There are claims that magnesium helps with behavior, moods, ADHD, etc... 

Life's been a crazy. Yesterday, I left the house by 8:30 am.... got home about 9:30 pm. Good thing I ate a good breakfast. There was no time for lunch or supper. It was crackers and apple slices and yuck... so, have to organize my Tuesdays better.

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I LOVE all your comments on the Positive Word Challenge. They are so much fun to read. Who would have ever thought this would be so, so.... challenging?

I'm not even certain where I stand at the moment. 

Hang in there!