Daughters

My soon to be 7 year old daughter is the most trying thing I face. Of course I love her and she is wonderful in a lot of ways BUT she drive me to insanity like no one else.

Whining- good crap that girl can whine. It can be triggered by anything: hunger, clothes, teeth brushing, mean kids, annoying brother, chores, lack of attention, lack of praise, lack of immediate bending to her will, and most of all... reading.

Reading- I loath teaching kids to read. Every night we plod through the stupid reading assignment just to be told at parent teacher conferences she isn't reading as well and as fast as she should. It feels like they expect her to pick up Gone With the Wind and read it over the weekend. I hate hate hate reading with her. She cries, I get mad, we both get bored, neither of us wants to ever do it again. It makes me wonder how people are able to successfully home school. I swear the kids are so much more willing to learn from someone other than mom.

I guess if you took away the reading and the whining I would think she was the greatest kid around. I'm sure the reading will work itself out eventually if we just keep at it but I'm not so sure about the whining. I can just see it morphing in to the hormonal outbursts associated with puberty. Oh fun.

-smarty pants