ki lekach notzarta-because for this you were created

sometimes i feel that the tantrumming is understandable. like yesterday, i was trying to cram all of chumash into an hour, with a lot of chazara and the new pesukim and rashi, and she was doing really well (and taking 5 min breaks when she got overloaded, which frankly i can see was simply not enough time for her to decompress). but i wanted to get it done, and by the end she was writhing. that's her latest. she throws herself onto the sofa (yes, she's 9) and writhes.

sometimes i think to myself that i am a saint. and i also think to myself that is it considered sainthood to not abuse your child and to behave as a mature parent, helping the child through her conflicts. yes. i'm a saint.

anyway, that was yesterday and i did push her too hard.

today, i did not push her too hard. instead of full chazara, i decided to just review the pesukim from the beginning of the paragraph, and then do 2 new ones with only a couple of new words.

i should remember that chana doesn't like to be told she is doing more than she expected. even though in a sense it is less than expected, having to read and translate fully 4 pesukim that she already did was not something she would accept without being forewarned. so then she devolved, even though she acquitted them nicely, and even with a break, the 2 new pesukim had many tantrums. she's still in time-out. (oh, wait, she's not. she's hiding under a blanket on the couch. well, that's like time-out).

she didn't know the word "avi" or "avihem" even though it showed up 3x and i had just told her what it was. she didn't know the word "sim" was "lasim" to put. she didn't know "vayelchu" was halach. she threw herself on the couch each time i told her she knew it, and then staunchly defended how she didn't know it even after i told her what it was and she saw that she knew it. etc etc.

plans for later. rashi (maybe) and reading and translating that last pasuk again. she threw herself on the floor when i told her that.

hopefully now that she's mentally prepared, she'll do it later if i give her a few hours to recuperate.