School and Upset Child = Balancing Act

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL!!!! The first blog post of the new year!

Alright, as you know...school just started back. I got into an online course called Later British Literature and we are covering the Victorian, Modern and Post-Modern time frames of British literature and how it changed in those times. Our first book: Great Expectations by Dickens. I read it in high school and thought this is going to be easy. Wow! It is nothing like what I remember from high school. The literature is the same, but the reader has changed. While I am reading this novel, I am annotating it (gasp...writing in my book, what?) and because of the prompts put up by my Professor, I am seeing things in this novel that I didn't see before. As I read more, I will elaborate more. 

One of the things that I was asked to do for the first week of class was to write a short blog introducing myself and some of my favorite things to do in life. I talked about how I was a wife and mother and that I love my family, but when it came time to talk about what my favorite things to do are...I couldn't think of anything. I told everyone that right now, my life revolves around my husband and daughter and that I don't really have any one (or two, or three, etc...) favorites things. My Professor responded with something that was deeply profound to me and I thought that I would share it with you: "Well, based on what you say your favorite things to do are things to_be_: a wife and mom. Being is even better than doing." When I read that, I just smiled. 

What I haven't been smiling about this week is the fact that my child is upset with me and her daddy. With both of us back in school and having homework to do almost every day, we are trying to figure out how to get her the most attention we can, but it has been really difficult and her attitude is really starting to show it. So...we are thinking about and talking about doing daddy-daughter and mommy-daughter dates so that she will get the individual time from us that she is wanting. Now...all we have to do is to put the plan into action. But we have seen a change in her already by just sitting down and "helping" her with a puzzle that she already knows how to put together or by playing with her airplanes or reading her a story. We need this time with her just as much as she does!!! 

Ok...it is getting late. Time for some sleep. 

Good night all.