Friday, May 11th 2018

After much to-do about each of the kids’ Weekly Progress Reports -aka: “Smiley Face Chart”-  it’s Friday and they each come home empty handed.  After all the discussions, supportive questions and encouraging reminders etc.,  it’s finally Friday.  I’m literally baking cake to celebrate what I’m confident has been a solid week of successful effort on their parts and… nada.

“I forgot to use it this week,” says my daughter.

“Every day?” I ask incredulously.  Like, even all the days we actively discussed it?

I can’t even.

I don’t want to listen to excuses.  I make her write me a statement instead.

I’m so sari mommy i hop you can frgiv me it’s jast i’v bin havin a lot of othr aktivties and hardli ane wok tame this wik.  LOVE CJ     (C+M)

Gracious.  Obvs I can’t stay mad.   Fortunately I’m stay calm anyway.   (Used noise canceling headphones to avoid interacting instead of listening to excuses or yelling at them.)   But it’s time for the lecture I’ve been cultivating for a while.

See: The Spaghetti Lecture

“Can I go on the computer Mom?” asks my son after another impressive afternoon of assertively busting out his chores (ask me about “Duty Discs“).

I have him go on the computer alright; to email his teacher about the absence of the chart we all agreed on and to “cc” me.  (Kind of exciting for me because in all his computer activity he has actually never emailed either of us before.)

And lo:

Man I love these kids.

Oh, and her teacher gets back to me too:

So what do you know.

Looks like there’s time for cake after all.

Imma let ’em eat cake.

 gracious how i love these knuckleheads

#MomLife