Homework and hurt feelings

March 12, 2012
Pearl and I have an intense relationship. And it showed tonight.

She had a homework assignment to do a report on a fish. She had to pick a fish, learn about its habitat, what it liked to eat, a fun fact about it, and finally, draw a picture of it. We came up with a whole bunch of different fish ideas at dinner... salmon, rainbow trout, sharks, swordfish, and clown fishes. Pearl picked a clown fish.

After the dishes were done, I grabbed some paper and her box of crayons. My thought was to "practice" with her since the rule was she had to write everything herself. I thought it would make things easier for both of us if I wrote down things she told me so she could see the letters and then draw my own clown fish so she knew what they looked like.

That did NOT go over well.

As soon as I headed for the crayons Pearl started screaming at me... "I don't want crayons! I want markers! I want markers! I want markers! No crayons!" You get the idea. I'm pretty sure she either didn't hear my response or didn't want to hear it when I told her that we didn't have any markers. Not to be deterred yet, I sat down and wrote out my own fish report for her to copy. The banshee screams only got worse. The next thing I know, Pearl is screaming at the top of her lungs that she doesn't ever want my help and that she only wants Dad to help her, and I'm sitting in the toy room fuming and almost in tears. I hid there for the next hour throwing toys away and reorganizing stuff, all while listening to Pearl politely talk to Jeff about her report and following all his directions with a sweet innocence. Ironic.

It really shouldn't have been that big of a deal. After all, I got out of doing homework and got the house all clean. Not to mention, got out of giving the kids a bath. But my feelings were crushed. I spent all evening holding back tears. I crumbled my own report and threw it in the trash.

How can a 4-year-old hurt my feelings!? Pretty pathetic on my part. But I was so hurt. I kept thinking, is this what our entire relationship is going to be like? Fighting? I'm the one who actually liked doing homework and feel as a mom, it's my job to help my kids with their homework. We can't even do her reading most nights because I get too impatient and Pearl just won't pay attention or listen to me. We fight. We argue. Sometimes, I will horribly admit, that it's a lot easier to "love" Cole than Pearl when we are constantly up and down.

It really hurt. And I'm not sure what to do to avoid another homework meltdown with me being the one who ends up in tears.