Anger Management

I'm not competitive.  A perfectionist, maybe, but I've never been one to obsess over winning and losing.  (For the record, I also don't really care "how you play the game," as long as it involves wine and dessert.)

My husband, on the other hand, cares whether he wins or loses and, in addition, he seems to care very much how everyone is playing the game.  When we were dating, we'd play volleyball and he'd tell me how you have to "sacrifice your body" in order to win.  You know, "sacrifice your body" while you're standing in a sand pit with your closest friends, trying to hit a ball over a net, because this is a Thing People Do.

In the world of winning and losing, my sweet Grace is her father's daughter -- but worse, because she doesn't have 30-some-odd years of practicing self control.  Everything her dad thinks inside, Grace thinks the same thing but also yells it.

The authors of our math curriculum thought that playing a game at the end of each lesson would be a light-hearted, fun way to reinforce the concepts.  They probably envisioned a family in front of a roaring fire, with hot cocoa, chuckling to themselves about how much fun addition can really be.  I'm not going to lie -- that's sort of how I envisioned it, too.  But let me tell you, it's too hot in Austin for a fire or hot cocoa, and at the Bertram house, these math games are no laughing matter.

This week's game was a low point for us.  Against my better judgment, I actually tried to take a picture of Grace when she was on the floor, fists clenched, screaming...losing.  I abandoned the idea out of fear for my life.

Naturally, because I had no way of relating to a child this upset over losing (let's just have a cookie and move on, okay?), I summoned The One Who Does This on the Inside -- my husband.  He managed to talk Grace off the ledge with tales of the gross injustices he himself has suffered at the hands of Winners, I promised to play the game repeatedly until she won, and everything seemed to be back on track.

Until Micah asked to play.

Like younger siblings everywhere, he's not trying to dominate the game; he only wants to be included.  But as soon as he actually gets included, he wins.

I don't think I have to tell you what happened next.   I tried in vain to explain to Grace that all that mattered was that she learn divisors of ten, she declared herself the "Loser of the World," and we pretty much called it a day.  Because really, where do you go from "Loser of the World?"

Another day, another opportunity to extend the same grace to my imperfect kids that their imperfect mother needs all the time.

Grace when I've obsessed over the small things because I can't see the big picture.

Grace when I've gotten wrapped up in my own temporal measure of success instead of the bigger, eternal things that matter.

Grace to throw myself on the floor, scream until I lose my voice, and start over with a clean slate the very next day.

Show and Tell

For years before our homeschool experiment began, my kids were in some form or another of traditional school.  Naturally, they've amassed an array of activities that they expect to happen during a school day or week -- some of these are great and some are...less great.  

For Grace, any school worth its salt includes Show-and-Tell.  Most of the time, my daughter seems to have very little concept of days of the week and the order in which they show up...except that somehow, she always knows when it's Monday morning.  This is the day that she has designated Show-and-Tell Day.  

Honestly, I find this little activity wholly unnecessary, even when it's in a traditional school context, because I've never met a five year old who needs an activity contrived to encourage her to take the floor and talk about herself and her material possessions.  

But the absurdity is really amplified when you put Show-and-Tell into a homeschool environment.  I can't think of anything more ridiculous than "show[ing] and tell[ing]" about something that you brought all the way from down the hall to show two people who are with you every waking minute.  

Oh, wait, yes I can:  when the thing that you're "show[ing] and tell[ing]" is an imaginary horse.  That you can ride, and that you've trained to do tricks.

Do you see why I can't put this sweet baby in public school?

Show-and-Tell is admittedly an Eye Roll activity for me, but for whatever reason, it's of critical importance to Grace.  For awhile, I tried to talk her out of it, but now I'm starting to understand that this homeschool I'm running here in ATX isn't just my homeschool.  

Like it or not, this is our homeschool.  And if an integral part of my child's homeschool experience is that she gets to literally trip over herself and fall showing me and her brother how she can "do jumps" on her imaginary pony, then that's what we'll do.  I'll be right there with her, cheering her on (and trying not to think too hard about what my life has become and how there's not really a pony there).  Because what she needs to know more than the history of ancient Egypt or the divisors of 10 is that She Counts.

Mothers -- homeschooling or otherwise -- fall into this trap all the time and we never even see it coming.  We get so wrapped up in our own vision of what life should look like (because admittedly, our vision is fantastic), we completely ignore theirs.  Most of the time, we think we're doing it For Their Own Good, as if we've gained more than we've lost when we've denied them the occasional cake for breakfast, the mismatched we-wear-pink-as-a-neutral outfit, or the late night trying to finish The Wizard of Oz (it's really long...).  

Or the five minutes of Show-and-Tell.  

So I'll take a deep breath and cede a little control to my five-year-old, because the only way I get to enter into her world in any type of genuine way is if I give her the grace to create it.  

And her world -- complete with magic trick ponies -- is awesome.