Darth Sidious: ”Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66.”
Commander Cody: ”Yes, my Lord.” [gestures towards Obi-Wan] ”Blast him!”
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Just so you know, Order 66 was an order from Darth Sidious (Emporer Palpatine) to the clone army, an order to kill all the Jedi. It’s when all the wheels fall off the Republic wagon, when everyone has picked their path to follow. That’s how this week has felt. Padawan Learner is hell-bent on making himself a schedule to get everything that is piled on the living room’s coffee table done before June 30. Done has become a very.big.deal to him lately.
Hey, no problem. It’s good to make goals for yourself, push yourself, see what you can do. Except when you make everyone around you (and yourself) crazy in the process. Padawan Learner can be a bit, well, pig-headed about things sometimes. I don’t know where he gets that trait. Sigh. He’s been complaining all week about not being able to get everything he scheduled for this week, done.
Done. Done. Done.
The fact that he has included far more than anyone could ever finish is irrelevant. Dad Windu and I have said, time and again, that there is no “last day of school” at our house. That the puzzles, books and experiments have no ultimate deadline attached to them…or else. But, he is determined to get it done OR prepare for a life as a jobless, homeless uneducated vagrant. Because it has to be one of those two options. Black OR white. This way OR that. Curing cancer and a Nobel at 15 OR dumpster diving for moldy cheese. There is no gray, no middle ground, this week.
He’s eating my brain.
What is it that Chris Issak sings on the album ‘Speak of the Devil’? Oh, that’s right. “Please, you’re killing me.”
This is the hardest part of parenting for me, and of homeschooling – letting mistakes be made, letting him flounder and flop a bit. It would be so much simpler for him to take me at my word, to follow my suggestions like he did when he was little, to use my years of acquired wisdom. Easier now, but harder later when he’ll have to make bigger, tougher decisions on his own. Sometimes growing up is painful – to do and to watch. There’s just no way around that.
I so identify with this!! My youngest gets these things into his head and there is absolutely no getting them out. He is so black and white sometimes I make myself black and blue trying to reason with him. It’s hard as a homeschooling mom seeing them put so much pressure on themselves…especially when its not necessary pressure.
My son is very much the same and he’s only four. He is so ordered in his thinking that if I change things up, he gets angry. He has to finish everything. It’s self imposed here as well, I tell him we can come back to something later but he’ll have none of it. I don’t set a school schedule, we learn all day, anytime, anywhere. I wonder if he will relax as he gets older or get more intense!
Wanted you to know that I didn’t get this post until this morning (it had been left out of the queue somehow), but now that I have it, it is included in the new Carnival post at my blog. Thanks for submitting it – - I loved this one!
[...] ObiMomKenobi has to let her son flouder and flop and make mistakes – - a difficult thing for a mom even with the most enlightened of outlooks [...]