Chill

So apparently, I’m the chill mom.

Ha!

Should have seen me the other night while trying to ‘help’ Olivia with her homework. OMG, you guys, that child is going to put me into an asylum.

It took her no fewer than 10 minutes to sit down. Seriously.

She spun, she clicked, she snapped her knees together (they’re currently bruised from all the snapping). She hopped. She put her right knee on the chair, paused, removed her right knee and put her left knee on the chair. She decided that, no, the left knee could not go first and switched back to the right knee.

Then she paused, right knee on the chair, looked around and caught my stare.

I said, “Will you just sit?”

That derailed her and the whole routine had to be repeated.

I was decidedly not chill by then. I wanted to pull my hair out. Except, you guys know how I feel about my hair these days, so that wasn’t an option.

Finally, FINALLY! She sat down.

-

-

-

And looked at me. And kept looking at me.

As if she didn’t know what to do next.

Her homework was right in front of her. The pencil was in her hand. The instructions were pretty clear. WRITE THE SPELLING WORDS.

She asked me to sharpen her pencil.

It didn’t need sharpened.

I sharpened it anyway.

She wrote the first three letters of the first word. She erased those letter and wrote them again.

She picked at the pencil. She looked me.

I glared at her and told her to WRITE THE WORDS.

This went on for twenty minutes. She had twelve words to write. TWELVE.

I know.

She doesn’t mean to irritate the shit out of me.

I know.

But I was so tired that day.

I’d gone to work early. I’d had to run to town before going home to order pizza for the JH/HS marching band to be picked up on Friday and served before a football game.

I know that Olivia can’t help some of her quirks.

But back to my being chill. Apparently, my ability to braid hair makes me super chill.

Who knew?

Go me and my mad braiding skillz.

Though, maybe my willingness to say the word penis in front of my children when describing the male reproductive organ lends itself to my chillness.