In over my head

Sometimes I have these days when I look at my life and think that I am totally in over my head. Yesterday was one of those days. Katya has been off-track since last week. I wanted to try and set up a routine for the summer that includes her doing some reading, math, writing and chores every day. I don't think this is too strenous or too much to ask - for her to spend an hour or so on these tasks and then have the rest of the day to do as she pleases. I don't wake her up early in the morning and she gets paid for doing it so when she complains about it her complaints definately fall on not-too-patient deaf ears! She actually has been fairly cooperative - only occasionally griping - and one night she literally spent at least an hour and a half doing math worksheets of her own accord. This was partly due to her wanting to avoid going to bed but it was definately the best thing she's ever done to get out of bedtime :)

Yesterday, however, in the midst of doing some math and asking her what 7 times 2 is and receiving this blank look from her - how could I not be frustrated! Do you know how long we spent last July through Octoberish working on multiplication and division facts? I am so tired of math flashcards! But that is what I pulled out again and made her practice instead of doing the math worksheet I had for her. She was pretty frustrated too, especially when we got to the number 2 division facts and our little math session ended up with her in her room crying. I have to tell you that at that moment I sort of felt like crying too! It was like starting over. I sat next her - our chins resting on her window sill - and asked her if she was frustrated, to which her tear-stained face nodded yes. I then reminded her that other kids had four years to practice multiplication and division (2nd grade - 6th grade) and that she had only been doing it for less than a year. This was actually probably more for my benefit than hers - the reminder that her class really hadn't been doing their math facts for several months and this is why she no longer remembers them as well as when we were drilling them into her brain and that it is mostly my fault because we should have still been working on this math aspect. I told her that I know how hard she has been working to catch up to the kids that are her age and that I was very proud of her and that I knew how smart she was. I told her that if I didn't think that she was smart enough to do it then I wouldn't expect anything of her but that I knew better. It is OK to be frustrated sometimes and I said that I sometimes get frustrated too, to which she of course asked me what frustrated me - a question I had anticipated a second after the words came out of my mouth but that I wasn't really prepared to answer honestly. If I could answer that honestly I would have yelled "YOU!" at her but it didn't seem that it would help the situation so I half-answered her question by talking about how I would get frustrated when I was in school too.

This little talk seemed to have appeased her and I walked away with a good feeling that I had "done good" which is why what happened later that day hurt my feelings so much. Katya would be mortified if she knew I had told anybody this so you readers are all sworn to secrecy! Lately Katya has been asking me a lot of questions about the lovely once a month "curse" (I didn't call it a curse to her but - hey - I know we all think of it that way!) - about why it happens, etc. I wasn't necessarily prepared for these questions and the maturation program that took place back in May that I meant to take Katya to (I had actually specifically called the school to find out when it was because they do that presentation in the fifth grade and not in the sixth grade) popped into my mind, along with the thought that it probably would have been more worthwile than the football game that she would have missed. I don't think Katya really trusted my expertise on this matter based on my answers to her questions and she gave me this dubious look that seemed to say, "You don't know what you are talking about, mom!" and truthfully my answers did not seem to suggest that I was all-knowing. Perhaps if I had answered with more assurance or had more intuition about why all of the sudden questions I would have gotten her news out of her. Instead, I got a hushed "Katya needs to talk to you about something" from Alex when he got home from picking Katya and Tony up from my mom's. "She has something to tell you" he said and although he wouldn't tell me what, the barrage of questions from the afternoon came to mind and when I guessed the lovely-womanly-thing-that-us-women-do-not-really-wish-upon-our-little-girls had happened, Alex positively confirmed. I did coax the news out of her after dinner without betraying Alex's confidence. Apparently it had happened back in May the day before her birthday - coincidentally the exact same week that Allie got her's - and since Allie was there for the weekend Katya had kind of seen all about taking care of it and hadn't really needed me and thus didn't really need to tell me.

Katya's secrecy brought back the memory of when I got mine when I was younger - a not-too-fond memory. It was a Sunday and my mom was trying to get eight kids ready for church and my education on the matter was a rushed demonstration of how to use a pad and then I don't recall any other conversations EVER. I see now how unwelcome this distraction would have been considering what my mom had going on at the moment yet it was one of those telling moments in your life and I vowed that I would never do that do my kids and that I would always encourage them to talk about it. How could I not be hurt to realize that it had been almost a month AND that she had told Alex before me? When I asked her why she didn't tell me she said that she thought I would be mad. This was the second time that day that I felt like crying and the point in the day when I felt totally unqualified for this position of motherhood that I have taken upon myself. What was I thinking? I didn't know if was going to be so hard - that I would feel so inadequate and frustrated so often. I really am over my head - can I swim out?

Worse yet, Katya doesn't like to play tennis with me - she would much rather play with Alex! I have to laugh at this hurting my feelings because the truth is that I don't like to play tennis with Katya either. She sucks and I suck and the combination of us together makes for a very uninteresting (and unhittable) tennis game. So - I think I can probably get over this one :)

As for the other thing, I found a website that I can study-up on so that in the next couple of days I can sit down with Katya and have an educated conversation with her and redeem myself.

I don't want to grow up

Katya told me the other day that she doesn't want to grow up because grown ups don't have any fun. So then Alex and I were trying to tell her last night about all the fun things that grown ups get to do and we couldn't really come up with many. Alex said that he has fun playing video games, but then so does Katya. Then he said that is fun for parents to watch their children grow up to which Katya have him a totally bored look. I can see how that would sound boring :) As for me, I have had a hard time coming up with all the fun things that you get to do as adults but despite that you couldn't pay me enough to be a kid again. Why is that?