Homework Night From H***

OK, this is my routine. I leave the office, drive home, get home usually around 5:45, depending on traffic. I usually check email, talk to the kids and/or help with homework a bit, maybe check on the garden, fix dinner, we eat dinner, watch part of a movie, and go to bed.

Last night I got home, took one look at Michael's face, and knew he was not a happy camper. In retrospect, I realize the classic line "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night" was right on the money. [We watched "All About Eve" not long ago, so it's fresh in my mind.]

Michael got very little sleep Wednesday night, since he had suffered the two bee stings that afternoon. I found him yesterday morning asleep, clutching the industrial-sized flashlight given to him by Uncle Bruce, and he said he kept thinking there were bugs in the bed all night. He slept very poorly. So yesterday when he got home from school, I told Mother to let him nap. Poor little guy sacked out for an hour and a half.

Mike was very fretful when I got home. He had been trying to do a school assignment on the computer, with no success. Mother was out of patience. It was damp and rainy and she was having a bad day with her arthritis.

I asked Michael about his homework. I checked his agenda. It didn't appear to be too bad. A few pages of math, some grammar, and reading. His teacher wants students to read 20 minutes every night. I don't mind listening to him while he reads. I quite enjoyed The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

Last night, though, homework turned into a real ordeal.

I made Michael jump on the trampoline for 10 minutes to get a little exercise, and then have a snack. Then we dug in. The math was hard for him. I tried explaining it and letting him work on it while I fixed dinner. That didn't work too well, but at least I got the chicken cooking before I had to sit back down with him. Mike's brain is like mine - seeing relationships between numbers is like trying to speak Greek. However, my biggest issues came with higher math like Algebra and Geometry. I can add, subtract, multiply, divide and simply remember numbers in my head quite easily. Michael has a fear of math, as I've mentioned. It doesn't interest him.

He's actually good at English grammar, though. Go figure.

I had to tell him several times last night not to say "I'm stupid! This is too hard!" and other negative things. I always tell him and Alesia "What you tell yourself becomes the truth. If you say you can't do something, you won't be able to do it. If you say it's too hard, it will be. You HAVE to be positive! You have to say I CAN do it!" [They always look at me with great consternation when I say this, but I figure if I drum it into their heads, maybe one day they will see the same sentiment on an infomercial or in a movie and suddenly realize I am not entirely crazy...]

Unlike most children who are very intelligent, Michael has only been speaking English for a little over a year. So doing homework, for him, means a LOT of supervision. He wants to do everything right, and spell it right. It takes him an incredibly long time to write out a sentence. Any word over 3 letters has to be spelled out. I try to teach him phonics, sounding out things for him, but it's still confusing. For instance, in Russian the "ee" sound indicates an "i". He also gets the "eh" sound mixed up with the short "a" sound ["ah"] and that has to be corrected. I always say "Michael "eh" as in "egg" remember?!"

I helped him finish a report entitled "Summer Fun" - about what he did over the summer. He writes very well, but he's not overly verbose. Here's what he basically said about the week we spent in Myrtle Beach: We watched DVD's in the car. We unloaded the car. We went swimming. We played golf. We went home. // Correcting his little paper and helping him illustrate it turned out to be the highlight of my evening.

Several times I came this close to losing my temper. I spoke sharply to Michael, which I really regret. It's like kicking a puppy - he gets that sort of a hurt look on his face. After a long day at work, and fixing a meal, and not eating dinner until almost 9:00, though, I was short on patience.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say, except for about 40 minutes of showering and eating dinner, Michael did homework all evening yesterday. Alesia helped a bit while I washed the dinner dishes, but it wasn't much of a break. I was so looking forward to a relaxing evening, since there is no tennis practice on Thursday, but it was not to be. This is a good rendition of my mental state by 11 last night: