back in negative patterns.. or were we?

and we're back.  all through pesach chana didn't want to do chumash.  so we didn't.  and although she is the perfect age to read through pesukim, we didn't do that at the seder.  hopefully by next year's seder, she will have gone through the pesukim, and she will enjoy finding out the details of the story.

but right now i'm annoyed.  all day she didn't want to do chumash.  this is not a surprise.  we were away most of last week and she has been unable to do her beloved animation.  so she's animating away.  it's been about 5 hrs of animation with a half hour break for tv.  i finally asked her what time she would do chumash.  she said 3:30.  however, at 3:10 aharon went for a nap.  and jack is napping.  so it's the perfect time. 

but she didn't want to.  she wanted to wait ***

well, when i sat down to write all that i asked chana to please stop sulking and fighting with me and let me know when she is ready and she eventually did and it ended up going fine.  we only did 2 new pesukim because they are difficult.  we reviewed from the beginning of the aliyah, and we reviewed shlishi.  we have rashi to do. 

when i first sat down to write this, i couldn't believe i was circling back into the pattern of months past, where she whined and complained and didn't want to do chumash, and i felt like pushing her was causing negative associations, but i also felt like she's not a young child and she can certainly tolerate some self-discipline and pushing to do something she is not in the mood to do. (yeah, yeah, my usual conflict).

i did ask her a couple of times to snap out of it, and she showed a lot of restraint.  and i did eventually say to her that i thought she was capable of doing something she found unpleasant for 10 min after spending all day doing whatever she liked.  and i did eventually walk away.  and she did ask me back by saying, "but the words are soooo hard!!" which i took as an invitation and i sat down and picked up the chumash and said, "so what?"