title <--this was chana

so today we started with shvi'i (finally done with that ever-so-long shishi!!) and we had 2 new pesukim and then 4 pesukim about sara. i knew chana would be ever-so-happy that sara would be getting some good stuff coming to her, since she had been complaining how unfair it has been to sara.

but she pouted about doing those extra pesukim. this is her personality. some kids, you tell them "we are doing some extra today. it's not that hard" and they aren't thrilled, but they are amenable. chana is not. you tell her we are doing extra, and she had an idea of only doing 1 or 2, and she digs her heels in. i told her they were easy, and that she'd like them. which they were, and which she did. but it soured her attitude.

then for chazara i decided to do a much truncated version because of her poor attitude. so i told her we would set the timer for 15 min and i decided to do some noach. (she wanted to do sheni, which she knows very nicely, and i said no). i made her hot cocoa w/ whipped cream, she took a small break, and i set the timer. she whined through it, and i remembered other times she went through these exact pesukim with a happy attitude.

so i said, chana, do you know why you are mopy and whining like this?

and she said, because i hate chumash. (she asked me today if i hated chumash when i was a kid, and i didn't remember! but i told her that definitely sarah felt the same way as she does. they don't so much hate the subject as the extreme stretching of the brain to implement all the skills it takes).

and i said, it's not because you hate chumash. it's because i made you do 4 extra pesukim today, and you can't stand it when i make you do extra pesukim that you weren't expecting, even if they are easy for you. and now you have a negative attitude and it's continuing to chazara, even though you are doing much less chazara than we usually do. and she cried a little about how hard it is, and then we moved on.

so if you are wondering how we did in noach. i decided to do the tower of bavel. i expected her to not remember a bunch of the words that we had reviewed and reviewed, like "mixed up" and "nafatz--spread out." which she didn't. so i was mentally prepared to just supply her with them. and "safa" she remembered the first time from context (a happy surprise) but didn't remember it in its various conjugations (language of, their language, etc).
i was happy to note that many of the grammatical and vocabulary pitfalls that she had fallen into at that time, she has integrated and mastered. so aside from those vocab words that i knew she wouldn't remember, she translated really smoothly and well. yay!

we finished quite before the 15 min were up, and i decided not to torture her by doing more.

we had a discussion about avraham's emotional reaction to the news of sara having a child. that he fell on his face and laughed. and chana was envisioning him, 99 yrs old, doing a bris on himself, and she mimed an old man with a shaky hand. it was very funny. i told her he was still quite vigorous even in his old age. so i don't think his hand was shaking like that.