Saturday, February 15, 2020
My seven-year-old, Mika is mad at Valentine’s Day and me. Mika switches often every day from love to dislike concerning me. If I raise my voice even a little, I am a bully. If I tell Mika to brush her teeth, I am always telling her what to do. Mika flips from hot to cold without warning and I am always in the firing line.
Thursday when Mika got home from school, she did her homework right away and fairly quickly. The student council does a fundraiser in which they offer candy grams to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. I do not want anyone in Mika’s class to feel left out so each year I buy a 50-cent lollipop for each child in her class and that is usually the extent of our Valentine’s Day preparation.
This year Mika wanted to mix it up. I still purchased a candy gram for each student in her class; however, Mika wanted to give more. We purchased a couple of packages of Valentine-themed erasers and Mika planned to draw a picture for each of her classmates on an envelope in which she could place the eraser.
That idea, of course, morphed into more. Mika decided each classmate also needed a pencil when she started decorating the envelopes. Mika started going through her pencil bucket for unsharpened, clean eraser pencils to give to her friends. If a child liked cats, Mika chose a Halloween pencil with black cats on it. If she knew their favorite color, they got a corresponding pencil. Mika carefully considered what she thought each child would like.
It took Mika half an hour to draw the first envelope, so I told her she needed to be a little less elaborate or she would not finish in time to take the Valentines to school on Friday. A couple of hours later, Mika had decorated and labeled the envelopes. Then the interesting part began. I gave Mika standard-size envelopes to decorate and the pencils did not fit inside. Mika placed each pencil in the envelope diagonally so only about an inch of pencil stuck out of the corner.
Mika decided she did not want to lick the envelopes to seal them with the pencil and eraser inside, so she taped them shut instead. I went along with the envelope taping idea because I thought the tape would be an extra securement for the pencils. By the time Mika had all her Valentines created, assembled, and packed for Friday, it was bedtime and Mika lost her cool.
Mika went on a tirade about how this is why she does not like Valentine’s Day and I never let her do anything fun. I am pretty sure Mika will grow up and write a book about how I ruined her life (it is always the mother’s fault). I gave Mika very little direction on this project other than telling her to scale down her drawings and insisting she put the Valentines in a shoe box for transport, yet it is still my fault she did not get to watch television when she was done.
Next year, I will make Mika start earlier in the week if she wants to make her own creations again. Perhaps she will be happy to stick to student council candy grams next year, but I am not holding my breath. Mika got over being mad at Valentine’s Day when they had a party for the last half hour of school yesterday. Mika will probably always be mad at me for some reason or another and I have accepted that fact.
My piece of advice to you is to be realistic about the time tasks take. I rarely plan enough time to do a task the first time; however, I try to learn my lesson and schedule more time when I do it again. We try to cram too many half-done tasks into a project to make it spectacular when simple completeness is all we need.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.
My seven-year-old, Mika is mad at Valentine’s Day and me. Mika switches often every day from love to dislike concerning me. If I raise my voice even a little, I am a bully. If I tell Mika to brush her teeth, I am always telling her what to do. Mika flips from hot to cold without warning and I am always in the firing line.
Thursday when Mika got home from school, she did her homework right away and fairly quickly. The student council does a fundraiser in which they offer candy grams to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. I do not want anyone in Mika’s class to feel left out so each year I buy a 50-cent lollipop for each child in her class and that is usually the extent of our Valentine’s Day preparation.
This year Mika wanted to mix it up. I still purchased a candy gram for each student in her class; however, Mika wanted to give more. We purchased a couple of packages of Valentine-themed erasers and Mika planned to draw a picture for each of her classmates on an envelope in which she could place the eraser.
That idea, of course, morphed into more. Mika decided each classmate also needed a pencil when she started decorating the envelopes. Mika started going through her pencil bucket for unsharpened, clean eraser pencils to give to her friends. If a child liked cats, Mika chose a Halloween pencil with black cats on it. If she knew their favorite color, they got a corresponding pencil. Mika carefully considered what she thought each child would like.
It took Mika half an hour to draw the first envelope, so I told her she needed to be a little less elaborate or she would not finish in time to take the Valentines to school on Friday. A couple of hours later, Mika had decorated and labeled the envelopes. Then the interesting part began. I gave Mika standard-size envelopes to decorate and the pencils did not fit inside. Mika placed each pencil in the envelope diagonally so only about an inch of pencil stuck out of the corner.
Mika decided she did not want to lick the envelopes to seal them with the pencil and eraser inside, so she taped them shut instead. I went along with the envelope taping idea because I thought the tape would be an extra securement for the pencils. By the time Mika had all her Valentines created, assembled, and packed for Friday, it was bedtime and Mika lost her cool.
Mika went on a tirade about how this is why she does not like Valentine’s Day and I never let her do anything fun. I am pretty sure Mika will grow up and write a book about how I ruined her life (it is always the mother’s fault). I gave Mika very little direction on this project other than telling her to scale down her drawings and insisting she put the Valentines in a shoe box for transport, yet it is still my fault she did not get to watch television when she was done.
Next year, I will make Mika start earlier in the week if she wants to make her own creations again. Perhaps she will be happy to stick to student council candy grams next year, but I am not holding my breath. Mika got over being mad at Valentine’s Day when they had a party for the last half hour of school yesterday. Mika will probably always be mad at me for some reason or another and I have accepted that fact.
My piece of advice to you is to be realistic about the time tasks take. I rarely plan enough time to do a task the first time; however, I try to learn my lesson and schedule more time when I do it again. We try to cram too many half-done tasks into a project to make it spectacular when simple completeness is all we need.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.