Why children and parents don't understand each other:

Two different points of view on Christmas "vacation"

Mom:" Yes!  I can go to my gym class, come back home, and still sleep another nearly 3 hours until 9 am!!!"

Kids:"Yes!  We can wake up at 7:45 as usual, except instead of going to school, we get to stay home and mom will entertain us every second of the day with activities and treats and sugar plums, and snowman building, and crafts!"

And they are actually disappointed when I try and make them understand that life happens even on Christmas "vacation."


In there defense though, Lauren did get up, clean her room, and go into the kitchen to scrub the dishes in the dirty side of the sink, then come upstairs to wake me up, you know, because I wasn't already awake from all the noise she was making, to tell me what she had done.  Somebody was listening during Family Home Evening when Daddy said they would get a treat next Monday for completing their homework: do a kind deed for someone.  Sadly, the most kind deed she could have done for me would have been to let me sleep another hour.


Incidentally this was a scene that played out at my house:  "Lauren!  Ethan!  Lily!  Come here this instant!  Now watch what I do."  I open the door.  I close the door.  "Did you notice how I didn't push the door hard when I shut it, but I pushed the handle down and quietly shut the door?  Good, that's good.  Now let me show you how LOUD it is the way you do it."  I open the door.  I slam the door.  "Can you tell a difference?  That's good, I'm so proud of you.  Now we are going to take turns opening and shutting the door correctly."  And we did.  And they successfully learned the art of sarcasm.

All of this reminds me of a song, "And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again."  And to think I actually used to consider homeschooling.  Ah, the ignorance of inexperience...