Hormones and Homeschool

I’m thinking this might actually be the name of a new blog, not just a single post.  It would be all about my experience as a pre-menopausal home school mom and my race to educate my children before I kill them.  Well, at least it would cover all the details of our daily trials and triumphs we have while homeschooling.  Today just may have been “the” day to prompt me to do this.

With hormones raging, I approached homeschooling today with a no nonsense attitude.  I had full expectations for my child to be focused and to to do his work diligently (especially since I have been teaching him about this godly characteristic for the past two weeks).  Instead, he whined for 20 minutes that his handwriting work was babyish, yet when I checked his work he had only completed one line and it was not worthy of even a check mark.  I then set a timer and told him that he had five minutes to complete the work and then it would become homework for him to complete after dinner.  Our phonics lesson was not that much more productive.  Lots of crying and whining.  Lots of wasted time.  And I was hosting bunco later this evening.  I did not need this to happen today.  I had a house to clean, tables to set up, and a meal to prepare for 12 women.  And have I mentioned that my hormones are raging?

Sometime during the middle of all of this, I sent him to his bedroom to cry and have a time out.  Time out for me, that is.  He finally stopped crying and came back out and said he was ready to work.  More complaining and just over all having a bad attitude.  I eventually broke down in tears as well and one of us crumpled up the handwriting paper and threw it away.  We need a do-over.  Tomorrow.  And, I promise that I won’t crumple up any more handwriting papers.