Norman got his shot in the eye and is still taking the eye drops for the glaucoma so all seems to be set for his operation next Tuesday. I am still doing all the driving and praying hard that the cataract operations gives him back the sight he had so he can pass the eye test and get his Florida license.
No school today so Regina is spending the day with us. She came a little after nine this morning and the plan is that she will stay as long as she is happy and I don’t get too tired. When either one of these happen we will drive her home. So at it is now almost 1:30 and she is playing nicely, Norman is taking his nap and I am talking to you. This morning Regina did a math worksheet, then we went over a reading comprehension work sheet she did in school and we discussed ones she got wrong and those were wrong because she did not know what the words meant, such as “sprint” I had her sprint to the bedroom and back a few times then she understood the word and also learned what pant means. After a couple more words explained she understood why she got them wrong. I remember when I was in school the only vocabulary words I knew on the tests were the ones my mother had called me. After I sounded them out I thought back on what I was doing when she called me that I then I knew what the word meant. Then at I got out the cooky dough I mixed up early this morning and she put the dough on a cooky sheet and she helped me bake some cookies to take home for her brothers. I bet they don’t get many of them. She did a good job with the first sheet full but the 3rd and 4th I had to do alone, her interest had gone- she figured she had enough all ready. Then it was time for Norman’s coffee break so Regina gave him a cookie and I started dinner. Regina went to play with my Barbie dolls while I cooked dinner.
After dinner Norman took his nap and I started blogging. After his nap Regina came back into the living room and we finished up her writing she had to do and another math worksheet, which was really bad. This teaching the test is for the birds! They may think they are being smart but all they are doing is mixing up the kids. They expect the kids to understand problems that they can’t do and then just tell them they are stupid. I got so frustrated I was ready to tear up the paper so we didn’t do that one and I lost all the forward progress I had made with Regina. I lost my cool completely and have come back to finish my blog and refusing to even talk to Regina. Hopefully things will be back to normal on Friday. I know I will never try to do any of those worksheets that I think are wrong for her or any first grader again. The teach can do those herself or they won’t get done.
Things are settling down now. Regina is happy just playing with my school things and I am cooling off. I will not try to teach her anything else today because as soon as I act like a teacher she just shuts me off. Maybe another day will go better. Now I will drive her home and let her recover. You have a good day.