Homework

Zoey has taken, lately, to homework.  Paper comes out of the art bin (Mommy, grab the paper with no lines!), her box of crayons, markers, highlighters, a big sturdy book from her collection to place the paper on.  She lays out on the livingroom floor, flat on her belly the way her Auntie Abby likes to study, and she writes the letters she knows.  A handful...Z, O, E, and Y, of course, although at times she tells me she wants an A or an F in her name, so her printed name looks like ZOEA.  (I took out the Y, Mommy.  I can put it in later.)  I think she is trying to incorporate the Letter of the Week from preschool in to her name, experimenting. 

This morning, while watching Elmo's All-Star Alphabet, she was thrilled to learn each letter comes in an upper case AND a lower case.  Thrilled, I think, and a little disgruntled.

"Mommy!  I didn't know each letter has a big and a little!  I can only write the big ones..."

So we lay down together on the floor.  I write out as many upper and lower case letters as I can fit on one page, and she is happy to trace them.  Underneath each one, she attempts to write it herself.  Proud of herself when hers mirrors mine, frustrated when it does not.  Like last week, when she was attempting to copy our address (Mommy, I need to write directions for Quincy to come to my house, you write and I will trace our abbress...) and got stuck on the numbers seven and five.  There were tears.  Not happy with simply tracing, but wanting it to look RIGHT. 

I worry, a little, about these outbursts.  Being a neurotic, anal-retentive perfectionist myself, I can spot one a mile away, and I am wondering if Zoey is a perfectionist in the making.  I tell her she doesn't have to know all the letters and numbers just yet, she's only three...some three year olds can't even write their names yet!  And that's okay, she'll learn all the letters and numbers soon, she can keep practicing, and we sit together, again, we write our address.  Again.  We do this until she grows bored and decorates the address with stickers.  I do not want her feeling pressure to learn things, and feeling as though she needs to do them just so. 

And yet.

There are so many worse ways for a child to turn out.  She could be lazy.  Not interested, even a little bit, in writing her name.  Hyperactive.  Content to follow.  Instead of her teacher pulling me aside to tell me Zoey is one of her best listeners, I could be hearing about all the time-outs she sat in through the day.  Zoey has never been in time-out at school, seems mortified that I would even ask.

Wanting it done right.  I can work with that.

She's moved on from her alphabet tracing, and is coloring in all the letters with her blue highlighter, so nearly every letter looks like a block.  She watches the alphabet show out of the corner of her eye.  She seems happy.

I am lame and this explains why

Hey, want to know what's more lame than going to bed at 8:30 on a Saturday night?  Setting your clock back the following morning and realizing you actually went to bed at 7:30!  Like an old person!

See, it would be one thing if I were normally a very hip and trendy person who typically stayed up until at least 10:00 every night, and just this once needed an opportunity to replenish her sleep bank.  The type of person who has a social life and knows where the fun is happening on a Saturday night.  I am not this person.  On a typical Friday night you can find me at the local Redbox, renting the latest Dora movie, or at home mopping my bathroom floor.  And, as these two activities will completely wear me out, I will typically be in bed sometime around, oh, 9:30, which is so totally late for me and look how exciting I am!

Adding to the lame factor yesterday was the Killer Respiratory Virus that finished sweeping through my house, claiming me as it's last victim.  I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday morning, when I was still pretending I was going to carry on with my normal Saturday routine instead of crawling back in to bed and dying, and she promptly hung up with me and called my aunt to come pick up Zoey.  And please hurry, I can hear her adding, because Zoey has had enough trauma in her life this year, and do we really need her to witness her mother dying a slow, tortured death as her lungs collapse and expel themselves through her nostrils?  No.  No we don't.

(I think we can all pause here and thank the uinverse that I am rarely stricken with whatever respiratory bug comes along, as it clearly makes me a wee bit melodramatic.)

Anyway.  My aunt came to retrieve Zoey and I spent an additional four hours in bed.  Then I got up, went to the store for milk, and was so completely exhausted from the experience that Zoey and I crawled in to bed together at 8:00.  Or, 7:00, really.  LAME.

I hate losing an entire day to being sick, especially a Saturday.  Now I have to play catch-up all day!  Winco shopping, a trip to Target, am I even going to make it to yoga?  Would anyone want me to join them in yoga class anyway?  And don't even talk to me about the laundry that is piling up...I managed to empty the dishwasher yesterday evening and that was monumental. 

So, here's the bonus!  When you go to bed at 7 p.m. you bounce out of bed at 6 a.m. ready to attack the world!  Sort of!  I stripped the bed of all virus-ridden linen, which is currently cycling through the washing machine.  Next I plan to Lysol every door handle and non-porous surface in the house, and that's just while we bide our time waiting for Target to open.  Does anyone know what time that might be? 

Standing in front of Target with your preschooler, waiting for it to open on a Sunday morning: also lame.  Welcome to my life.