The Why

It was a yucky day in the Sanders’ School at Home yesterday. There is no way else to put it. I had been looking forward to our Monday all weekend. Last week our 2 days together had been cut short by unavoidable things so I was excited about Monday when I knew Julia and I would have a good 2 ½ hours to spend together. My idea was to do a simple math evaluation just to review and to boost her confidence before we proceeded with our day. She has excelled in math, not because of my teaching, but because she just happens to be good at it. Yesterday, you would have thought she had never counted to 5. I have to tell you, all sorts of things went through my head of what might be wrong with her. Did she have a high fever during the night that erased all memory of numbers? Has my 5 year old been sucking on some recalled toy made in China? Have I repeatedly exposed her to mercury infested fish? Everything just short of visitors from space raced through my mind. What has happened to her brain this morning? I kept looking at her, studying her for some clue, waiting for her to burst out laughing to tell me she was “just joking”—she never did. After about 30 minutes of keeping my cool, I patted her on the back, smiled and said, “I think you need a 5 minute break. Why don’t you go upstairs and rest on your bed?” Without a word, she went. I set the timer and worked on dinner for our company that night. Second attempt. After 30 more minutes of her erasing, shrugging shoulders, not remembering how to write the number SIX (!!?!!) and my keeping my cool, I patted her on the back a little firmer, forced a smile and said, “You need another break. Go upstairs and lie down and think about how to write the number six.” Again, she went. I set the timer, walked into my closet (so she couldn’t hear me) called Jeff and heard myself say "yes" when asked if I wanted him to be pulled from a meeting! As I dissolved in my closet, Jeff offered to come home to try to get to the bottom of it. I told him no, that I wanted to be absolutely sure she was doing this on purpose and really hadn’t just forgotten the basics of addition for some freak reason. Third attempt. When she couldn’t recall the shape with 8 sides even after telling me the sea creature with 8 legs was an octopus, I waved the white flag. I surrendered. I lost and she won. My irritation was no longer hidden behind pats and forced smiles. No yelling, no tears, no brash words, but she knew I was upset and I told her why. She had wasted our entire morning with this crazy charade of hers. I told her I loved being home with her, loved teaching her how to read and do math, loved reading all sorts of books and poems to her on the window seat but not with someone who wasn’t putting forth any effort. I said boat loads in my monologue on the way to pick Brighton up from Tree Frog School including that there were lots of other things “mommy” could be doing this morning but she was my choice. This was her only question- her only words the entire way to Boland Street, “What kinds of things, Mommy? What else could you be doing?” Poor girl. She listened to a list a mile long. (Words like nap, friends, and coffee just flew out of my mouth!) Bad statement, bad question. However, before we got out of the car, I made sure she knew I would pick her ANY DAY of the week to spend my morning with and I felt very blessed that God had asked me to be her teacher and that I wanted to do it.
Unfortunately, the charade played on through Daddy’s inquisition and investigation and she suffered the consequence. Her choice. But before our dinner company arrived, she had completed the math work perfectly as I knew she was capable of all along.

So what of this? What am I thinking today? I wish I had prayed more through the whole shenanigan. I wish I had picked her up, snuggled with her, prayed with her and asked her was there something she needed to talk about. I wish I hadn’t allowed my flesh to take control and wield the face and voice of frustration at her. I wish I would have stood stronger while my daughter tried to see how far and how long she could push her mother. (a pitiful 60 minutes) I wish I could have seen that her charade was only one of her ways of finding out how securely she was woven into this family God hand picked for her. Her intentional rebellion was her way of testing where Mommy and Daddy stood with her. This isn't the first or the last time we have stared rebellion in the face. It’s not cute at 5 and it will certainly be full blown ugly at 15. God knows best, doesn’t He? Each week His Divine wisdom in having her home with me is ever so evident. The sweet thing is He doesn’t have to show me these things but He has been. When He asks His followers to do something, hopefully, we do it and we may never know exactly why. His gracious gift to me so far has been allowing me to see some of the “why” of His asking me to carry out this particular task.

(I respectfully told Him the “how” would be nice, too.)