The petite goddess rules over our home (or tries to, anyway…both the wife and I come from stubborn blue/pink collar stock), but for all her divine majesty, she doesn’t like to rule over her success. Or, rather, she doesn’t want to work at it too hard. There are things she has thrown herself into as of late, such as her drawing, which is marvel to watch develop, but often she doesn’t like to work at things she cannot master pretty much right away, like the whole shoe-tying thing.

This is just one of many reasons we don’t home-school her, at least not yet. Needing the basics of math and language to be firmly planted, we have made sure she gets it in a structured environment with (theoretically) well-trained overseers…I mean, er…teachers. With her level of stubbornness when confronted with obstacles, combined with my stubbornness that you need to keep trying…well, someone would have been carried out of here horizontally by now (me, as a result of an aneurism) and someone else would end up unable to read, write or calculate (her).

The wife and I are great at fine-tuning things that she gets from school, skill-wise, so that she ends up above her grade level (in terms of verbal/language skills, at least, and context when it comes to history stuff) but we’d make crappy teachers of fundamental concepts and elementary skills.

When the little goddess is faced with the failure to master something within minutes, this is how things have traditionally gone:

Oooooooh! I can’t do it!

Yes, you can. You’ve made a good start. Just try…

I can’t! I can’t do it!

Just…

This is too hard! I’ll never get it!

Let me show…

I’ll NEVER BE ABLE TO DO IT!

C’mon, now…

Hey, I did it! (Sometimes happens same-day, but really, probably days or weeks later)

See? I told you that if you just practiced and calmed down and had some patience you’d…

I’m an expert at this!

*sigh*