sometimes all the conditions are perfect except...

if you have to choose who is in the pissy mood and who isn't, who would you choose? mommy or student?

obviously, it depends on what you are doing. but there is a general truisim: "mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." when mom is run down, exhausted, cranky, and overwhelmed, then the whole house is unhappy. conversely, when mom is well rested and at the top of her game, all the tantrumming in the world is going to be handled optimally.

however.

if you are trying to get learning done, what is your choice? choice a: an eager chana, with a crying jack, and a destructive attacking elazar. choice b: elazar on a playdate, jack asleep, and chana being pulled away from something she's in the middle of doing?

i was in a good place. chana tantrummed through the entire half pasuk. there is one new word. first, she reviewed the white board (unasked) and complained that עדן from yesterday is in hebrew, and it's throwing her off. then she complained she doesn't know the new word. then she translated the rest (interspersed with crying and whining, like how is she supposed to know that היה means "HE was" and when i went to show her r' winder, said "it's NOT just the shoresh, there is a vav!" [והיה] and i'm internally rolling my eyes because she knows vav is a prefix and not one of the you/he/she/they prefixes or suffixes), and guessed at פרד and shrieked like a banshee when she didn't get it right. i drew a picture of it splitting off into 4 tributaries and she shrieked that she has NO idea what that is and she wants to stop and it's too much and too hard and i should just tell her.

i raised my hand and waited for her to ask me what and said the screaming is bothering me and can she please speak in a nicer tone and she fell on me crying that it's too much and too hard.

this is all because she was in the middle of doing something else.

on the up side, i reacted beautifully to all this because i had nothing else going on. BUT it takes 10x as long to do something when she doesn't want to do it. i finally packed it up and we'll leave it for tomorrow. (i peeked, and tomorrow's half is tiny and easy)