Mom Life Tuesday

In 2020 when schools had to shut down because of covid-19, my son was scheduled to start kindergarten. He like the two sisters before him have early birthdays that allow them to graduate high school at the age of 17, but with the commotion anticipated from already having 3 kids trying to adapt to the horrors of virtual learning, I decided to hold off on enrolling my son into school. I knew it would’ve been too overwhelming for me for me to handle on my own. During that time their father was on sea duty and his command was preparing for an upcoming deployment which meant he was underway (gone) a lot. With the new guidelines and protocols surrounding the mandatory quarantine period, he was away for 2 weeks longer every time they had to go out to sea. Of course, I discussed my concerns with his father, my therapist (who also practices family counseling), and even my son’s doctor and they all agreed how it might be beneficial in the long run for him not to be part of the smaller and younger kids in all his future classes. I felt bad for my decision to hold him back a year but I knew I would’ve been in over my head which was confirmed once I learned how confusing, ineffective, and overall unorganized virtual learning was as I took on my new duty as a teacher to 3 kids in elementary, junior high, and high school. Once things got back to normal the following year I enrolled my son in kindergarten and all went well for him both academically and behaviorally. Over the summer of this year I underwent surgery followed by a painful recovery.  I’ll admit I didn’t focus at all on keeping up with the little ones pertaining to reading and basic refreshers in the form of grade-level workbooks from the dollar tree store and amazon like I should have. My middle school child, Noemhy, read comic and anime books all summer while Jazzy, my high schooler worked. Amora who was heading into fourth grade I wasn’t too worried about because of how well she’s always done and excelled academically. When it came to my son I wasn’t too sure what to expect because he only started school the year prior. When this school started this year, I’m guessing because my son’s new first-grade teacher was focusing on figuring out where his students were at, but my son didn’t get any homework assignments for the first couple of weeks, unlike his sisters. When he finally got his first homework packet I was more excited than he was, he expressed a bit of grumpiness. Immediately he voiced his desire for wanting to do homework exclusively with his dad for whatever reason which, if I’m being honest, was perfectly fine by me. I took on the task of reading with him every night right before bedtime which I started up again as soon as school started. My son struggled to read basic words he already knew and I started getting worried because of how much he regressed. I figured maybe he just needed new books to get him more excited about reading so I asked his dad to help me pick out Pokémon books for him. (Pokémon is something he and his sister deemed as a dad thing because I don’t know as many characters and how much I suck at the video game because of my inability to fight and catch Pokémon characters the way “Dad does”.) Still, there wasn’t any progress; if anything, he seemed to regress more. I started to really worry about him but with his father and I both being so busy with work there was no communication about how he was reading with me and how he was doing homework with his dad. His father ended up getting tied up at work and wasn’t going to be off early enough to do homework for a few days, and to no surprise, my son wasn’t too happy about it. He gave me such a hard time about the first few pages of his homework packet especially when it came to writing out sentences using his spelling words that I started to worry about him even more academically. That night after signing off on his reading log in his folder I found a spelling test he took the week prior that had a big 12 out of 10 circled on top. My son got all the words right including two extra bonus words. I was a bit confused and figured maybe it was a practice test of some sort because there was just no way he got all the words right and thought nothing more of it. The following week his father started the chief season where he was going to spend the next 6 weeks with the newly promoted selectees, engaging in all of the navy traditions and rights of passage. I myself was so busy with home life and work that I completely forgot to do homework with my son. I know, I know, shame on me.  I realized my mistake around 6:30 pm on Sunday as I was prepping to cook dinner. His packet is due every Monday. Amora and her sisters do homework on their own and very rarely need assistance at home and with my son preferring to do homework with his dad, I got a bit spoiled. I swore that night I was going to be doing homework with him until at least 10:00. I have an open floor plan in my house so I sat him down at the table to begin his homework while I started dinner. I explained only the first page’s instructions to him and with no more than enough time for me to chop and sauté onions, peppers, and garlic he started playing with a random toy while sitting at the table. He didn’t ask me a single question or for any assistance so I was a little irritated thinking he was going to give me a hard time. It’s homework time not play time I told him as I turned off the stove to walk over to him in an attempt to try to refocus his attention on his homework. He handed me his packet and declared how he had already finished. I’m not going to lie, I was fully anticipating seeing some bullshit on those pages, but to my surprise everything was not only completed but was correct. My jaw dropped as I shook my head and blinked in disbelief as I turned those stapled pages over and over. He wrote out all sentences perfectly fine and he spelled all the words correctly. I wanted to roll up the 8 pages that made up his little packet and swat him with it over the top of his head because of how worried I was about him possibly needing to be tested or even held back, but all I could do was laugh. My son played me like a fool by acting a fool, and he got me pretty good. Since then he does his homework on his own and he’s passed every spelling test missing a bonus word here and there. He still gives me a hard time about reading out loud every night before bed though. At this point, I just roll with the punches. Mom Life.