What Geek Parents Do.

1. They get excited over the trailer for the new CGI series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

2. They learn of new Star Wars series because they read a comic book news blog daily.

3. They stay up late playing KOTOR. If you're a geek you know what that is, if not it's Knights of the Old Republic, one of the finest computer RPGs ever made.

4. Family Night is a rousing game of X-Men Legends 2 on the X-Box.

5. They get all teary when their 5 year old can finally navigate a website on his own. *sniff*

6. Thy get all teary when their 8 year old can name the Scarlett Witch's relationship to Magneto. *sniff*

Soccer

My posting has slowed down lately. Hopefully this will be temporary. The past week, current week and next week are all a little crazy with Brownies wrapping up for Catherine, soccer starting for Harry and Catherine, choir and my course. Also, my husband's on vacation so all the odd jobs and yard work that have been neglected for the past 5 years are getting addressed.

Last night was Harry's first soccer practice. The little guy has been talking about this for a month and a half, showing off his cleats and telling anyone who will listen about soccer. Within 5 minutes on the practice field last night he was crying and claiming he couldn't kick the ball. Back he went into practice and back he came crying claiming he couldn't run. This happened a few more times and we eventually left early. I think I have a little perfectionist. I think, for the last month and a half, he's been imagining himself as a soccer star and when last night came and he wasn't the star he felt defeated.

I think we'll kick around the soccer ball this week and talk about different expectations for soccer like fun and play. If anyone has any strategies, feel free to share them.

Simple Machines

I did a grade 3 science test with Catherine a couple of days ago. She did well except for any questions on simple machines. Somehow, we've missed covering simple machines lately. I know we've done a bit because in exploring pyramids we'd talked about ramps and levers...Of course that was about 4 years ago.

We visited BrainPop for some short films on inclined planes, levers, pulleys and wheel and axels. Brainpop is definately becoming one of our most used resources. After that we mosied on over to Edheads which has some great games that helped Catherine identify not only the four simple machines from Brainpop but also gears, wedges and screws.

Today, if she ever manages to doddles her way through math and grammar, I have a couple of worksheets for her to do and plan to send her on a treasure hunt for examples of simple machines in our home.

Sober Second Thought

I've been thinking about my trouble with the upcoming curricullum fair. Prompted by some good comments on my prov. email list I've come to the conclusion that I should put up or shut up on the issue. Either I should volunteer and help the NSHEA and offer a different viewpoint or I should join another prov. organization that has concerns closer to mine.

The fact of the NSHEA may be that the people running it have a certain view or bias but they work hard with limited manpower and resources and if those of us with different ideas and POV's don't step up and help, the blame for things like the current conference has to fall on us as well.

I see a parallel with the COH. I should either work to help change it or work to build an alternative. Sitting on the sidelines throwing drink cups gets me nowhere. The deciding factor might be again, me being a christian. Maybe that demands I engage the christians running the NSHEA rather then join the other group.

The HSLDA is coming...

...To my provincial homeschooling organization's conference and curricullum fair.

The NSHEA is supposed to be, "non-denominational and inclusive." Yet this year's fair is being held in partnership with HEMS.

From the HEMS site;

HEMS is an acronym for Home Educating Mothers' Support. We believe that the greatest support available to homeschooling Mothers is that found in faith in the Lord Jesus followed by the support offered by the fathers of homeschooled children. The goal of HEMS is to provide homeschooling families with resources, encouragement and edification to help make homeschooling a positive experience and one that follows the Scriptural pattern for raising children for God.

And then the guest speaker is a man from the HSLDA.

I knew the HSLDA was coming and I knew a representative would be the guest speaker. I brought it up on our provincial email list several months ago but no one seemed bothered.

But now I see that HEMS is a partner and one of the workshop topics will be The Battle for the Child. Don't gag yet, read the description first;

Canadian parents are in a battle for the souls of their children. We at HSLDA invite you to join us on the front lines of this battle as we seek to protect the right of Canadian parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Sometimes the only thing standing between us and the future indoctrinations of our children as foreseen in Brave New World are a few good men and women who simply refuse to surrender the minds of their children. In this seminar Paul offers insight into where the battle lines are being drawn and what we can expect in the next several years.

Okay. Now you can gag.

I am so fucking disapointed in the people running the NSHEA. What kind of message do they think all this might send out to homeschoolers who aren't christian? If I looked at their conference info without knowing what they were supposed to stand for I'd assume they were christan, that there was nothing for me at the fair and that they probably didn't want me there anyway. Heck, even as a christian I'm already debating my attendence. I would have no problem with the HSLDA and HEMS being invited to pitch a booth and talk to people but they've been put in a position where they seem to represent the views of the NSHEA.

I suspect my objections (emailed to the NSHEA and posted to the provincial email group again) will be shrugged off. I sure hope not though.

Chemical & Engineering News

I sent Chemical & Engineering News an email awhile ago following some excellent articles they had on homeschooling and homeschool science curriculum.

Hello,
I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate that Chemical and Engineering News is not only talking about homeschooling but reaching out and providing information to those of us who are frustrated by the lack of secular science materials for homeschooling. Sometimes it feels a bit like we've been forgotten by those in science education. Thank you and the author, Linda Wang, for reaching out a hand and offering some support.

I just wanted to let them know how seeing their article made me feel. That was back at the end of April. I got this reply today;

Dear Ms. Adams,
Thank you for your recent letter to the editor of Chemical & Engineering News. We have decided to publish it, and it will appear in an upcoming issue of the magazine. We appreciate you taking the time and interest to write it.

Rudy Baum,
Editor-in-chief
Chemical & Engineering News

I like getting my letter published but frankly having Ms. Baum write back and let me know my comments had been appreciated was the best. I hope more people in science follow their lead.

Ding Dong...

JJ knows I'm not a great Hitchens fan but boy, I wanted to give him a kiss seeing his send off of Jerry Fallwell.

Religious Quote of the Day

No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.

George Bernard Shaw

Tom's Diner

I'd only ever heard Susan Vega's 'Tom Diner' as the version with the beat behind it. I was slumming it in YouTube his morning though and found the A cappella version which I think is a whole lot neater.


And just because it's so damn neat, here's Laurie Anderson's 'O Superman as well.

All Over the Place.

Today my grade 3 daughter did grade 2 math, grade 3/4 grammar, grade 6 geography and something approaching grade 8 or 9 science.

Since we started a more structured approach those little numbers after grades have concerned me a little more but I think today I got a good look at how useless they can be at times. It's not the numbers, it's the child's skills and interests.

It's funny, I knew this when I was a radical unschooler. We took a different approach and now I seem to have to learn it all over again in a different context.

Carnival of Homeschooling

The new COH is up at PalmTree Pundit's!

Mother's Day

Sunday started rather late as we'd all been out at a party the night before to celebrate my sister's birthday and my brother coming home for a week. My sister filled a water bed mattress with air and the kids amused themselves for the next four hours with jumping, bouncing and rolling off the thing. That left the adults free to have a few drinks or sneak out to the garage for some fun with burning herbs. I stayed sober and out of the garage as I'm chronically anal. We grabbed the kids around midnight and went home but boy, we sure slept in the next morning.

So once we woke up a bit it was off to church for the believer mom and the two undecideds'. Harry doesn't usually go because the one time I brought him I spent most of my time scraping a crying pile of boy of the church floor but I didn't have a sitter so he came. And he liked it. He had fun in Sunday School and thought the music was nifty. He and Catherine were the only two people in the church that didn't recieve communion since they aren't baptized but it didn't bother either of them. Doesn't bother me either. Maybe they will get baptized, maybe they won't, but it will be their decision. I honestly think the biggest stumbling block for Catherine in getting baptized is, well aside from the fact that she thinks the trinity is just silly and the Greek Pantheon makes more sense, the fact that she'd have to drink wine. It's icky stuff in her books.

Oh, they did call the kids up to the front. They were handed carnations and told they could give them to their moms for Mother's Day. I should have another kid so I get three next year. I'm always up for freebies. Maybe I should adopt a quiverfull philosophy. I could get a whole bouquet.

The rest of the day was wonderful. Catherine gave me the gift of help and patience when dealing with her younger brother and it was the most wonderful way she could have expressed her love. Harry, inspired by the atmosphere was sweet and helpful. I have such awesome kids and it's such a gift to be their mom.

As a Christian Website...

The action taken towards School of Thought was not done in anger or malice. As a Christian website HSB has a responsibility to its members, that they can trust that the websites we direct them to are family friendly, the whole website. That's it. No more, no less.

That was the first bit of a response made at last week's COH by Tia to a comment of mine;

I'm not at all sure this will be posted considering what happened to School of Thought but I'd like to suggest that if HSB can't handle the diverse nature of the larger community served by the COH then perhaps they should not host any future carnivals.

Unfortunately discussion isn't a good thing so all comments related to the controversy will now be deleted from her blog.

My point still stands however. Her responsibilty as a host was to accept submissions based on the post submitted, not the blog. Rejecting posts based on the blog is something the COH seems to frown on since people who boycott HSB are not allowed to host. If she feels blogs that contribute to the COH may compromise her responsibility to her members, then she should not be hosting the COH.

But what made me angry was the, "As a Christian website," bit. There is nothing in being a Christian website that would demand shielding readers from websites that might challenge or offend them. One of the best Christian websites I know is consistently challenging and at least as offensive to HSB sensibilities (really, check out these jokes! No. 5 is good one.) then School of Thought.

What Tia should have said was, "as a conservative Christian website..." Or maybe she should have had a list of specific denominations HSB members represent that she could paste in there because that attitude of protecting sensibilities simply isn't a universal Christian value...Probably not even a majority one. Christ himself could be an offending asshole when he needed to be and sensibilities or 'family friendly' concerns weren't really a big worry for him.

As a Christian blogger, I call bullshit.

Carnival of Homeschooling

I'm about the thousandth person to comment on this today but it seems the latest COH host took the liberty of removing a post of Éireann's. See, Midwifemom had a little trouble reading School of Thought...

I occasionally read the Carnival and skim through and read what sounds interesting. So far, I had only run across good Christian blogs through the Carnival. I was very dismayed when I went to School of Thoughts blog to read more on unschooling. I had to weed through so much trash talk, that I don't even know if I ever read the blog that I came for. When blogs are being considered for the Carnival, the whole blog should be taken in consideration not just one post.

Now of course when a grown woman can't find her back button on the toolbar a nanny should step in as soon as possible to shield her eyes for her, right?

Yeah. Right.

Anyhow, I'm not completely convinced this doesn't have something to do with Éireann's criticism of this post from the current COH. I'm not completely convinced Midwifemom wasn't more offended by Éireann's atheism then her swearing. Regardless, Tia was all too happy to respond to Midwifemom's refusal to take responsibility for what she viewed by deleting the School of Thought entry.

Now there's talk of leaving the COH behind. But is there any chance of an offensive?
Is there any chance of snatching more COH hosting duties, submitting more posts with the odd 'fuck' or detailing atheist, liberal christian, lesbian, etc. homeschooling experiences? I mean, this is the fundy pattern - The war of attrition that eventually pushes out those of us with more then two digits in our IQ.

Could we push back?

P.S. I submitted a post several weeks back about our Cafe Press 'Evolved Homeschooler' gear and got neither a response nor a spot in the carnival. I thought someone messed up. Now I'm not sure. I've resubmitted it in any case.

Quote of the Day

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." ~Gandhi

Some actual stuff about the kids.

It is so cool to see my daughter working away at math problems that would have stumped her just a few months ago. I know, I know, I know that many kids who never use a math curriculum can be math whizzes. At the same time there's a certain joy in building skills page by page with structure and practice. Yesterday the proof was in the pudding as Catherine zoomed through her Math Mammoth work with ease.

It was also a great day for Harry. He had seen Catherine and cousin Madi playing Fisher-Price Pet Shop ealier and after they were finished with her computer he wanted to give it a try. I started it up and hovered for a few minutes but he didn't need me. He can now work the mouse like a pro, navigate the program at will and fully understan the instructions given to him by the narrators. Honestly, I was bursting with pride. Catherine caught on to computers before she was two but it's been a long time coming for Harry and now I'm so happy to say I'm well on the way to having another gaming geek in the family.

Abraham & Isaac

At Bore Me To Tears this is asked about the story of Abraham taking Isaac out to sacrifice him;

If not as literal fact,
How should we take the story?
As an allegory? Then an allegory for what?
Surely nothing praiseworthy. As a moral lesson?
But what kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story?

It's a Richard Dawkins quote and a good question. I'm not going to tell anyone how it should be taken but I will offer up how I take it.

I admit it's one of my favourites stories from the bible. I just don't think, for a story of high drama and conflicting values, you can get much better. I think my favourite thing about it is that it never settles. It's not a story that any good, thinking person can ever feel completely comfortable with. Abraham is asked to do something deeply wrong and we're asked to see that as virtuous.

First off, It's myth. This never happened. At the very, very best this is a legend but so steeped in layers that it doesn't reflect anything of the real events or people that may have sparked the story.

Second, It's an ancient Hebrew myth, not a christian one. I don't say this to distance christianity from it but to make it clear who the story is speaking to and who's values it describes. It's a favourites pastime of some christians to go rummaging through the Hebrew Scriptures for prophecies and justifications but that's simply wrong. Read them as a part of our heritage, yes. Appropriate and revise them for our own purposes, no.

So what do I think it is? I think it's a story that shows the defining feature of the relationship between the ancient Hebrews and god and that feature is obedience. Abraham was in almost every way a right sorry bastard but he was still a righteous man and that was because he did what God told him. To understand that puts a lot of the OT in context because so much of it is about how obedient or disobedient the people of YHWH are. The best of the people are the ones who obey. The punishments come when people disobey. Abraham was willing to obey to the point where he would kill not only his son, the one son (well, from Sarah anyway) who YHWH gave him, but any hope of Israel.

I don't think there's much in terms of morality to wring from the story. It's about obedience and that's it.

I did hear another idea over on an atheist message board I frequent (where else do you go when you want to talk to people who know the bible inside and out?). A poster posited that it was an injuction against child sacrifice. When the Abraham story was first being told child sacrifice was likely going on in surrounding cultures and the Hebrews themselves may not have been to far removed from it. The poster thought that the fact that god stopped the sacrifice and made it clear it was not something he wanted may have reflected something about the Hebrew's views on it. I don't really buy that about the version that made the OT but I can see that maybe earlier versions of the myth may have had that as more of a focus and then got obedience tacked on later as the story grew. There have been MANY times I wished I could have been sitting around a fire with ancient hebrews telling these stories because the great shame of writing the stuff down is that we only have one (or two as with Noah) version of the tale preserved and only at one point in it's development.

Richard Dawkins

Okay, so I'd have a bone or two to pick with him over the whole religion and god thing but I was over at Bore Me To Tears and saw a little picture of Richard Dawkins and realized that, Holy Shit, he's hot.

Take a look...








Yum. Why can't the Archbishop of Canterbury look like that?

You might be a Cow Patty if...

Doc posted a link to a howler of a page. It's all about Prairie Muffins, nice godly women who listen to their husbands and wear aprons. Prairie muffins is also a term for poop.

Now I'm jealous. They get to have a manifesto and pick out a cute poop name for themselves? I am not going to be outdone on this. I'd like to announce that from now on, I am a Cow Patty. You might be one too and can take the following questionarie to determine if you are.

I believe in;
a) a god.
b) gods.
c) the Flying Spagetti Monster
d) George Clooney.

I think sweatpants are;
a) Okay for jogging.
b) perfect for working around the house.
c) smashing when topped with a stained beer logo T-shirt!

I believe homosexuality is;
a) natural.
b) intriguing...
c) just a normal part of my life.

My apron is;
a) a mess.
b) non-existent.
c) huh? What's an apron?

I clean my home;
a) often.
b) really...I clean often...
c) ...often enough anyway.
d) Okay, okay. I clear paths with my feet as I'm walking through a room but that's cleaning. Sort of. Isn't it?

The idea to submitting to partner's authority over a relationship makes me;
a) giggle.
b) chuckle.
c) double over with laughter.

How do you score yourself? Easy, if you picked a,b,c or d in answer to any of the questions above, you're allowed to join the ranks of the Cow Patties. If you were too lazy to take the quiz or had to forgo it in order to seperate a couple of kids who were fighting, you can be a Cow Patty too.

In fact, the only thing that would disqualify a person from being a Cow Patty is if they were a Prairie Muffin.

As for the Prairie Muffins...I'll meet you out back of Joe's Soda Shop for a rumble. We'll see who has the cutest poop name.

We'll see.

Christian Thinking

Over on School of Thought, Unschooler has a post on Christian thinking sparked by a post that shows up in this week's COH. She's braver then I am for actually reading the post. I've found that homeschooling posts made by women of a certain christian bent tend to, quite literally, turn my stomach.

Despite that, my beef is with Unschooler (it's ON girl!! :)) who went on to say,

My heart sinks even as I read it several hours later. Retrain their hearts? WTF? The Christian belief system is truly flawed.

Now I am not going to question the fact that the christian mom displayed a certain christian belief system. Some christians like to deny it but the bible, as much as I cherish it, is a library of all kinds of different writings and some of them are simply ugly and stupid. We should always trust that there will be people who pick out those bits or use one reference to a quiver or rod or a snakebite to justify their actions or control others, even (or perhaps especially) if the others are their children.

But they represent a christian belief system, not THE christian belief system. Jacque (the christian mom from the original post) would likely find her chrsitian values questioned and challenged if she presented them in a group that included members of the UU, Quaker, Evangelical Lutheran or UCC churches. I know I'd like to sit down with the dear and discuss childcare.

In a wider scope, what is THE Christian belief system? After 2000 years we have thousands of christian denominations and groups and the differences between them are sometimes startling. I don't think the question should ask what it is. I think it should ask if there even is one.


But what about Jacque? I think Unschooler came close to the truth when she said,

I proclaim we pen a theme song for this kind of fanatical thinking.

Fanatical christian thinking. Works for me.

I'm a God

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: Budha   You are Budha. You are a very peaceful person, you love all who love you. You are a cheerful personality, and you have a great sense of humor. Congratulations!! You are Budha!!
Goddess Bast
Jesus
The Christian God
Goddess Sekhemet
God Zeus
You are your own God or Goddess
Satan
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

Courtesy of Greg Laden who happens to be Satan.

A Matter of Scale

I've got three cool reosurces related to the scale of things we've been talking about in our house lately.

I'm cheating with the first one because I already posted about it but it's Cells Alive!. On that site you start with a picture of a pin and steadily zoom in one a human hair, pollen, blood cell, etc. until you get to a rhino virus.

Over on Evolved Homeschooling there's the coolest post on a site where you can view a Blue Whale...life size. Sort of.

The one that I thought was neatest was the one we used yesterday at KidsGeo. The first page relating to the size of the earth shows it in relation to all the planets in the solar system that are smaller then it. The next shows it relation to the other planets, the next to the sun and so on. It goes on until the sun is the size of a pixel compared to Antares and Betelgeuse.

Pastoral Epistles

Whoo hoo! The pastoral epistles!

I had to read these this week for my EFM course. Really had to read them because we'll be having one of the bishops of our diocese as a guest and I, being a relatively shiny, new Anglican, want to show him what of a keener I am.

The pastoral epistles are Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. They are written as if Paul wrote them but most scholars seems to think they were written by disciples of Paul and likely after his death. They do have a feeling of a church more structured then what's presented in genuine Paul and boy, they just go ratshit crazy telling women what they can't do. Especially 1 Timothy whose author seems obsessed with what young widows might be up to. Sort of makes me wonder whether, as the church became more of an institution, uppity women (who were once in leadership roles. Really. Check out all the female names in genuine Paul stuff) were becoming a problem for the boys in charge. Really, you don't tell people to sit down and shut the fuck up unless they've been standing up and making noise.

From what I gather they're important largely because they reveal something of the structure of the early church. At least to reasonable folk anyhow. Unreasonable people like to put their brains away in nice velvet-lined boxes and take all that obsolete and numb-nutted advice about household codes and young widows unquestioningly and fire their Sunday School teachers. Thankfully I think the bible was written by men, not God and so I don't have to buy one of those nice brain boxes. There's real value in The Timothies and Titus but it's mixed with a steaming pile of crap. One must tread carefully lest their shoes become soiled.

Anyhow, that's what I've been reading. And I still have to finish the course text on the matter as well as the Oxford NRSV footnotes.

For a great perspective on biblical literalism check out the link and essay at Cocking a Snook.

Kitchen School on Saturday

Yesterday we tried out the new World Maps workbook I mentioned a couple of posts ago. The first page introduced the hemispheres and had a little quiz related to them. I went to Owl & Mouse as they have some geography puzzles you can download for free. The one I put on Catherine's computer was the Continents Map Puzzle and she played it several times until she could place the continents correctly. Funny thing is that she used to play all the Owl & Mouse geography games when she was around 4 and had them down.

There was also math. A page of Math Mammoth and the next adventure in the Alexandria Jones story.

Free Comic Book Day!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Take the time to search out an online retailer (if you're in Canada - All New Comics) or local comic book store and ask for your copy of whatever free comic they're giving out.

Our New History Workbook

I got a new workbook yesterday. Not NEW new but 'new to you'.

It's 'World Map Skills: Teaching World History With Maps' and it looks fun. Granted, it's a grade 6 book but it's nothing beyond Catherine's capabilities and she's looked it over and is eager to start it.

The book is in great condition with only one mark in it. It's right here;


It's like a found editorial cartoon on creationism.

Back and Forth

It seems for everything I do right in our homeschooling I do something else that I'll later view as a mistake. Like the way I kept trying to go back to Singapore Math when it was Math Mammoth that Catherine enjoyed. Understand that I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I value the mistakes and they keep me on my toes. They just happen a lot. And I think I found another one.

We've been studying cells and it's been pretty in depth for a grade 3 kid. Lots of reading, lots of technical terms we were both unfamiliar with. I was fine with doing this because Catherine has an interest in cells.

Last night I got to thinking. What was my point in doing this with Catherine? Did I really expect her, at 8, to be able to understand and communicate to others the details of cell structure and functions? No, what I really wanted, and as I told my husband when he wondered if I wasn't packing too much information in, was for Catherine to have a familiarity with the subject. Something to touch on down the road when she comes back to it. Okay. Good. So exactly why was I packing in all that extra information?

I think I've been getting passion and interest mixed up. What Catherine has is an interest in cells. I've been dealing with that as if it were a passion. An interest is a calm little campfire compared to a passion's overwhelming bonfire. A campfire needs a piece of firewood every once in awhile. A bonfire needs whole logs. I'd been chopping down trees and passing them to Catherine.

It's tempting though. It's tempting to try and turn an interest into a passion and so I'll push a lot of information (does an 8 year old really need to know the pieces that make up riboomes?). Generally not successful though. Try throwing a huge log meant for a bonfire on a campfire and all you get is a smothered fire.

We'll keep going with cells but I'll have a bit of a different attitude. I'll be summarizing long reads and skipping some of the detail. She doesn't need to know it all right now and that's not what she wants anyway.

More Religion and Politics...

...For anyone that's interested. It's some heavy shit and the Anglican communion is on the line. Exciting stuff.

Now don't be like that. Of course Anglicans are exciting. Take a look at when we first became a glimmer in England's eye with Henry VIII and his annulment of his marriage to catherine of Aragon. We're all about sex and intrigue baby.

No. We're not boring.

Cut it out.

*sigh* Just read this;

Father Jake Stops the World: Falls Church: "Nigeria's Frequent Flyer"

For a could bit on why this is so offensive to the Anglican communion read this.

Yes I know this is all about religion and it's about us Anglicans and Episcopalians and we're generally viewed as about as exciting as soggy white toast but TRUST ME, if you're any kind of fan of a great, monumental political battle, this is the show to watch. Sex and intrigue, remember? That's us.

Pro-Wrestling has NOTHING on us.

Happy Reason Day!

I didn't know about this holiday! It's an american day and I'm not american but I'm going to plug it anyway. I first learned of it over here,Bore Me To Tears: Happy Reason Day!.

Now yes, I'm a theist. And I'm a theist who thinks prayer is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But I'm also a lefty, liberal theist who happens to think a national day of prayer is a ridiculous thing meant to pander to some americans and exclude others. The National Day of Reason is a nice counter.

When You're a Bitch

Yesterday was horrible. I was in a bad mood and depressed and Catherine was full of unfocused energy. It was NOT the day to do 'kitchen school' and I should have known it. Regardless, I was determined that we would get some work done for some godforsaken reason and we sat down at the kitchen table to do math.

I pestered her to work faster and got angry when she got distracted. At one point she cried and I...No, I didn't comfort her. I snapped the book shut and declared that was it, I was done. I was done. how grand of me. What a completely stupid, self-centered, bitchy, mean hissy fit to throw.

It's embarrassing to admit this. I made my daughter cry and further, continued to act like a bitch after that. It's the kind of stuff that makes me angry when I hear of other parents doing it. The kind of crap I have no patience for. And I did it.

Other parents do this right? Other good parents? They have moments where they completely fail both themselves and their children? Reading other blogs and message boards I sometimes get the impression that the only slips other good parents make are honest mistakes like the forgetting to pack a lunch or missing how a comment they made hurt a child. But do others get mean on occasion? Get stupid? Act like complete assholes?

....

Today was much better. It was normal again. We worked together, did puzzles, listened to music and cracked jokes. I acted like a mature adult and she acted like the joyful kid she is.

I'll keep yesterday in mind for a long time. Not to feed a pity-party or drown myself in guilt over but as an example of what I can be like and what I should be on guard for. Hopefully, it's not the slips that mark a good parent but what we do to make up for those slips and ensure they don't happen again.