Just Another Manic-Depressive Monday

Remember all that happiness I mentioned on Friday?

You know, I actually managed to hang on to that happiness pretty much right through the weekend. Strange but true. For once, in I don't know how many months, I managed to spend my weekend doing a little bit of all of the things that I enjoy. Drinks and laughter with friends on Friday night. A trip to Borders with the Tornadoes, and a nice run (still on the treadmill - not ready to brave the outdoors again yet. Brrr.) on Saturday morning. I will spare you the aggravation that was Saturday afternoon with the Tornadoes, as it will only spoil the momentum...and Sunday: many, many hours lying on the couch reading.

And here we are again - back at the beginning of what is sure to be another hectic and frustrating week.

Part of what makes the weeks so frustrating as of late is the fact that I have determined that I need to dial up the homework supervision. Third Grader is a diligent student, but Fifth Grader...it's not that she's struggling, exactly. She enjoys school. She likes to do well and she shares her new knowledge with me with a great amount of enthusiasm. She just doesn't really want to deal with school anymore once school has ended for the day. Homework, in the eyes of Fifth Grader, sucks.

And it isn't even that she gets all that much of it this year. The only assignments that are really ever sent home are ones that she didn't get finished during class, or math papers needing problems corrected. Easy peasy, right? Yeah. If you want to call singing, flipping, eventually sitting down at the kitchen counter under duress, and then thrashing about in wild frustration "easy", you go right ahead. I do not enjoy it.

So here's how the week is starting. Tonight we were all home by about 5:45. A quick perusal of assigned homework results in Third Grader slamming down her two already completed papers, presenting homework journal for my initials, and proceeding to her latest passion, which is knitting. Yes, knitting. Meanwhile, Fifth Grader's journal poses one little assignment; answer seven questions about her reading group book. I have never heard of her particular reading group book, much less read it, so all I can really do to help her is lurk. I try to lurk from a distance, while I get dinner ready.

Then the singing begins. "Is there a question about singing?" I ask. She resumes writing. I resume cooking. Third Grader begins explaining the process of knitting to us on an unsolicited basis. Fifth Grader retorts with a handful of sassy big sister remarks while simultaneously climbing onto the kitchen counter to reach the cat. "Is petting the cat part of your homework?" I say, not so patiently. She resumes writing. I resume cooking. Third Grader resumes knitting.

Dinner is served and consumed, and we begin again. It is now 6:30. Fifth Grader has made it to question #3. I go upstairs to put away laundry and check my email, maybe stare aimlessly out the window for a few minutes pondering some other matters, and return downstairs at 6:55. She is on question #4.

I have had to resort to my very least favorite reward for a job well done with Fifth Grader; namely, the ability to watch "Dancing With the Stars" tonight, with me. I have absolutely no desire to watch "Dancing With the Stars". I am hoping just the teeniest, tiniest bit that, at 7:59, she is still on question #6. But I know that she won't be. She will be finished, because watching extraordinarily grating reality shows with her mother seems, for some reason, to be the ultimate reward for the child. Go figure. I'd happily take a fudge brownie.