It was one of 'those' days. Yesterday was so wonderfully...well, wonderful. Smooth, upbeat, happy...not today. Every one wants to blog the positive, but in reality there are hard days as well as good days, why not voice those as well and have people truly understand that you do have imperfections and difficult times. So here I go, It seemed everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Perhaps even I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The kids were both tired, un-motivated to 'learn' and that was a truly down hill combination with my working late and rising early and less than patient attitude.
Onto our usual morning of dressing, family work and our morning sit down together, I received talk back regarding our family work to help with the animals, refusal to brush teeth, complaints of just wanting to watch TV and not do anything and resistance to put away shoes that the dog was trying to chew up...it was quite the morning. At this point I should have realized our 'normal' morning was just not going to work- I should have changed it up- I should have taken a step back from the situation. I didn't. We plunged through the morning, animal chores, math, poultry quiz, reading and when they were still having fits, I threw out idea's, I offered help and....I was pushy. I despise that part of me. It creeps in wanting to control, to make things all better- to fix it all, to show them the way- or tell them how to get there. This unschooling, homeschooling, freeing journey is just as much of a journey for me as it is for my children....
STOP and STEP BACK, take a deep breath and just stop is what I finally told myself.
In this moment I remembered I was so not alone in feeling this way...I remembered what I had recently read...another mother's story:
How-not-to-inspire-learning
I turned to my daughter who had stated all morning she was 'blahh' and just wanted to finish her American Girl movie and told her to go for it. I turned to my son and said forget the teeth brushing, let's go ride bikes. Smiles. Two sweet children's smiles...you could see their faces relax..and then I relaxed. My son made two laps on his bike then came to me and sat next to me and said 'I'm grumpy today'. I laughed and said I was too- then he laughed and hugged me. He hoped back on his bike and minutes later he was giggling, full of smiles, showing me a sweet neighborhood cat he had found in our front yard and talking up a storm. Lunch time came and we went inside, my daughter came over and hugged me and apologized saying she didn't know why she was so out of it today and I apologized saying I didn't have my usual patience. I told them both we'd read and watch a movie for the afternoon and rest. By evening we had dinner and went to our 4H meeting and everyone was happy, content, relaxed and went to bed with ease, love, and hugs.
In the end, it is up to me to say STOP, take that step back and realize that every day is not going to be perfect, we may need days off from our 'usual' or 'normal' and in the end, taking time away will make us better for it.
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