I stayed up late Wednesday night when I realized I was going to have to rush from work to gymnastics for Popcorn then to directly to the event...I had to stay up late so that I had a snack to share!
Heaven forbid I show up to a church social with no snack to share!!
Guess what?
I'm really glad I made those candied pecans as we nearly ran out of food...
NOT!!!
(does anyone say "not" anymore?)
No, in fact the food went on forever and ever. It was so much as to be disturbing.
I had to lead carols...
A Capella...
And I assure you that was NOT awkward in any way shape or form.
The worst singing experiences are in front of small crowds where you are forced to use a mike when CLEARLY it is not needed, and you can see the face of every single person in the room. Give me a crowd that I can't see with a spotlight in my eyes on a stage over a small intimate gathering any day!
And the Christmas craft idea/decorating idea? Well, the same ladies that ALWAYS display did fantastic. I decided to be brave and bring samples of the ornaments my girls are making for friends. And I brought my gift I made for my family's home made gift exchange...
I seriously wanted to hide my pitiful offerings, but decided instead to proudly display my crafts for all of those noncrafty folks that I know are SOMEWHERE out there (although they are obviously NOT bloggers as so many of you are crazy creative.) I put out my girls little ornaments, and my humble home made gift.
And I mentally said "Take that Super Crafters!"
I had a BRILLIANT idea for a post today while I was at work.
I have no idea what it was....
I do know that somehow my nine year old is unable to understand time...Oh, she can read the time...And she can write any given time on a face of a clock...
Ask her what time 5 past seven is?
She is completely baffled...
I have explained it and explained it...
She. Doesn't. Get. It.
I'm pretty sure that this is a failure of the public school system and in no way any fault of mine...
The same reason she doesn't understand that 75 cents is three quarters of a dollar...Ask her how much three quarters is worth and she knows it's 75 cents...Try to change that to three quarters of a dollar and she is utterly confounded...
Same with quarter after 9, or a quarter to 8....
HELP!!! I went online and have printed off some time practice sheets. We are starting at the very basic and gradually working up.
Guess what else? My sixth grader scored off the charts on the achievement test in math.
Strangely, I still have to explain her math to her nearly every night...She will do an ENTIRE assignment wrong, and never realize that it's wrong. Every day she brings home her math...And too many times to count she will have missed eigth or ten CONSECUTIVE problems, because they are all of the NEW problems, which she THINKS she understands, but obviously doesn't or she wouldn't miss them! So I will hand it back for her to correct...
Which of course she CAN'T do because she doesn't understand why it's wrong.
So with much weeping and gnashing of teeth on BOTH our parts, I explain the correct way to divide fractions or how to solve 3/4x=7...
And then she will do them all correctly with very few errors...
WHY am I having to teach my children their math?
Sometimes I think I should just home school them...
And then I remember that I work...
Oh, and the small fact that we have much weeping and gnashing of teeth when I'm teaching them...
So. Tonight I'd planned to get out Christmas decorations (of course first we had to put AWAY the fall decorations) but instead we ended up reviewing time and fractions.
Now I'm so mentally exhausted that I'm drinking a cup of Christmas cheer while the girls are watching The Grinch and Studmuffin sleeps on the couch...
Was this the worst post ever???
Oh, wait! I have one more issue to
I had a lady ask me about my girls and "did I still have to work full time."
(Am I the only one who feels put on the defensive by that question?)
"Well, I actually only work 30 hours per week, which has been working out okay."
"Let's see, you've been doing that for two years now?"
(The strange thing is, I know this lady truly truly means well. She has decided to take on a mentoring role for me. I'm just not sure I'm embracing her mentorship.)
"Well, I'm not sure when I started. This summer I just worked Monday through Wednesday."
"Oh, well that's nice. What do you do for child care?"
Well, of course I no longer HAVE child care. It isn't necessary as I take them to the bus stop and Brent meets them at home after school. However, I'm not sure what we will do this summer. Bookworm will be going into seventh grade, so it seems silly to pay someone to baby sit her when I was babysitting for others by the time I was that age.
And of COURSE she regrets that.
I said, "Well, my girls are only 17 months apart, so to say they would be ALONE is not really accurate. They have each other."
And then I ended the conversation as quickly as possible and sat down to be surrounded by SAHM's who I love but hate because they all stay home and home school and I'm sure teach their kids "scripture in the morning and scripture at noon and scripture at bedtime" in the words of my youngest child who will be a GREAT mom...
And I realize that this post seems rather whiny when in fact I've been in a really good mood all week, riding on the high of a great weekend with family and realizing I'm nearly done Christmas shopping!
So, if one focuses on a cup of eggnog in my hand...half filled instead of half empty boxes of fall decorations...and two ridiculously beautiful girls curled up together on my couch, I have nothing to complain about!
Tomorrow Popcorn is going shopping with her dad as she is near panicked to have not even begun shopping for her sister (this is sure to take hours) and I'm assembling the tree and cleaning house in the morning so we can actually put out decorations as a family tomorrow night...
I love putting out the decorations, and my husband hates it. What is UP with that?
Oh, and I somehow volunteered myself to bring three dozen cookies to church for the annual community tree lighting put on by the chamber of commerce Monday. So, obviously I will also be baking cookies...
Which is one of my very favorite thing to do!
What are your plans for the weekend?
5 comments:
Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. That's possibly on my agenda if I'm not allowed to stay home tomorrow.
My 3rd grader is having the same issue with the clock thing, "quarter past, quarter to." As I was reading your blog, I got the idea to print up a clock and actually cut it into four pieces. I like visual things. Then show how quarter past, quarter to....gunna' try that tomorrow!
You're a great mom to spend so much time on homework with your kids. My husband taught in a Christian school for 7 years, and the teachers said they could always see a difference in the students who had mom and dad helping them at home.
Mindy, I also thought of taking a clock and dividing it into fourths and placing quarters on it so she can grasp the three quarters of an hour and three quarters of a dollar thing in one fell swoop...Hopefully.
Well, I truly didn't have anything better to do. Your post kept me amused as I nursed 3 bubs! thanks for that.
Time is really tricky to teach. You'd think not, but there you go ... I'm with Momma Mindy. When I taught I always noted how much of a boost it gave kids when they got a little extra help from Mum.
What our kids found confusing was that a quarter of an hour is NOT 25 minutes. Why shouldn't it be? A quarter is 25 cents. So, I feel your pain. Don't worry. They catch on.
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