Keeping up with the tradition the girl received the “Most caring/loving award” this year too 🙂
Read the 2011 story here. Its no way different this year. She is still the girl who throws all sorts of tantrum at home, refuses to cleanup but gets the most caring, loving, best helper, cleaner, scrubber and what not award from school. I go back to square one with the same question again “Is it normal for kids to behave this way?” though this time after lot of thinking especially after my recent posts I confess that at my childhood days I was almost like her throwing all the tantrums to amma where as trying to be in good books of every other possible outsider. So, I don’t blame her. The genes are playing at full swing. But, I blame myself for a different reason.
She was awarded this certificate at school assembly on Friday along with the First Honors award she received for academics. Did I tell you guys? She scored A+ grade in English and A grade in all other subjects for this quarter so she was eligible for First Honors. We received the report card few weeks back and were informed that the award will be distributed on last Friday at third grade assembly. As any other proud parents we attended the assembly to see the girl receiving award and took some pictures and I left to work right after her class has been awarded. Blame it on my meeting that was later postponed to today 😦 Adi had received the Student of the Month award after we left. The first thing she asked when I picked her up in the evening was “Mommy why didn’t you stay back? why did you leave in the middle? You know I got another award today. I was looking around for you guys when I got the award”. I felt terribly bad and cursed myself enough. The very thought of her searching around for us in the crowd while receiving the award added more fuel to the fire. I slapped myself in front of her and ranted enough that at one stage she started consoling me. I told her that I am not going to have my dinner as a punishment and she was very sweet to say “No amma. don’t do that other wise you will feel very hungry. You just skip the evening snack okay?” 😀
She declared Friday as her lucky day as she got two awards, her name was selected in the lucky draw that happens at her class every Friday (the one in which she was expecting her name to be drawn for past few months) and had an impromptu play date with her swimming mate. Separate post to follow on the play date.
Over weekend we made her first formal project requested by school. A poster about Augusta Savage. In order to honor the African American history month each kid at Adi’s class was assigned and asked to make a poster of an African-American woman who had struggled and excelled in their career. We googled researched about Augusta Savage and made this poster over the weekend. For the records I drew lines in poster for Adi to write neatly. She wrote the letters with pencil and then traced it with black pen. Still we scraped the first poster as she didn’t leave enough space between words and made few spelling mistakes (though she copied the sentences from my rough work). We bought the poster sheets on Saturday. Started the project on Saturday evening and finished on Sunday evening with all shouting and whining. I mean she whines that her hands are paining and asks for a minimum half hour break for every two lines. How am I expected to react? I succumbed/screamed/lectured depending on my state of mind. Thinking about it now I HATE myself for all that shouting and the recent post by SnS filled me with more guilt. This is not to offend you SnS. I definitely need some clarity in this topic and totally appreciate the effort you have taken to address it so well in your post.
SnS – I can’t agree more with your point and would love to implement it but how is the million dollar question as one size doesn’t fit for all. Doesn’t our reaction depends on the opposite party’s action or the history we hold with that person. No one would like to shout at first sight or rather at first incident. I believe that shouting happens only when you get frustrated and give up on the other person though I totally agree that this is not the right solution. Shouting happens when you feel helpless. Shouting happens when you feel trapped. This is just my two cents based on my personal experience. I am basically not that shouting type but sometimes I feel that I am forced to raise my voice otherwise I have he fear of not being heard. I am clueless on how to handle these situations. I don’t mean to hurt you or anyone else here. Hope you understand.
Alright where was I oh yeah the poster, it is done and ready to go to School this Wednesday.
Another interesting thing I did this weekend is to revisit the photo collections. Adi’s class teacher had asked for 6 to 7 pictures of her milestones to create timeline. After a long time I browsed all the pictures from the day she landed on this earth to till day to gather those 6 to 7 pictures. It took almost two hours but was totally worth it. Her first day, first walk, first tonsure, first bike, first day of school, first snow, Adi in pattu pavadai (silk skirt), in halloween costume, birthday snaps of every year.. A trip down the memory lane filled with mixed feeling and emotions especially when I saw my mama (amma’s brother who passed away few years back when I was at US) on one of the picture…
Between my littles and me 