musings

as i write this, i have to question the poor choices i make regarding chumash.

pros:
jack was in bed
i was ready to do chumash

cons:
i was trying to wait for chana to finish what she was doing, she wanted 2 more minutes, and jack was stirring, and i was getting antsy wanting to do it before i had to attend to him, and i finally abruptly told chana that jack was stirring and i wanted to do it NOW.
chana was hungry, and food was almost ready
elazar was jumping around and on top and wanting things and attention

result:
chana was whiny, i was tense, and i was not as nice about handling elazar as i could have been. add jack starting to whimper a bit on the monitor (btw, he has settled back into his nap and i haven't even taken him out after all), and chana saying "i don't understand" in a particular whine, i started having that bursting angry feeling inside my chest.

a result of my choices.

i think in homeschooling it's a common mistake for me to want to get things accomplished or done, without thinking about how they are getting done and at what price. granted, i have to have that mental taskmaster over me, to make sure i keep my long term goals in mind and we are setting up learning to achieve that.
but after a learning session like this, i often think it might have been better to lose a day rather than have it go like this, with me having that tense need to get through it, whimpering chana and elazar craving attention. (bear in mind, this was under 5 minutes. probably not a major part of their day).

but when homeschooling with young children, you have to balance that with the knowledge that if you let a day slide by because of that sort of situation, soon the majority of them slide by and then you lost a bunch of years...

one of my homeschool friends said the year she had a baby was always a lost year. she has a lot of children...

anyway, specifically, chana couldn't remember zahav. she couldn't remember "haaretz hahi" was "this land" even though when i said it verbally, she understood. it did not help that elazar was literally bouncing off of us.

thankfully, it was only 4 words, all of them known the chana, and she knows that the gold in that land was good. (really, why is the torah telling us this?)