Homework

Last week I was working with Boy Genius on his homework.  I took three different courses of elementary school math in college, so I understand most of the math lingo.  The "broken calculator" though, not so much.  Phonics is a little confusing still, especially since this was the first week of phonics homework.  Boy Genius is also a perfectionist, so it takes him longer to do his homework than it should.  He was writing sentences for his spelling words, and he was using the dictionary to find the correct spelling of some other words, when I started to get really annoyed.  I wasn't able to give Girl Genius a lot of attention because it was distracting Boy Genius and he couldn't find the word he was looking for even though it was right at the top of the page.  It took everything in me not to just tell him how to spell it.  I'm trying to remain calm and yet I'm getting really "heated."  And it dawns on me: I'm low.

In high school, I would leave class if I was low.  In college, I didn't have to finish an exam if I was low.  Here I am though, working on second grade homework, and I'm stuck.  I can stand up and test, take some tabs (which I did), but I still need to sit back down and focus.  Life doesn't allow you to walk away.  I need to focus, I need to be patient, and I need to remember that these children are not the reason I'm low.  It's easy to get frustrated when I'm low, but I need to remember that I'm frustrated at diabetes, not at the kids.  So I take a deep breath, grab some water, sit back down, and go back to second grade.