We are three days into a very structured school schedule.  Trying my best to get us into a healthy learning routine before we head out again.  The beauty of this next trip is that it is just us… the miscreants, the husband and me.  No more family.  No more visiting.  Obligations that do not extend beyond just our five minds, bodies and souls.  So, the fact is, even though we will be on the road some, once we’ve settled in to our final destination, there will be little to stand in the way of us and a continuing routine of some degree of structured academic learning.

However, as these last few days will attest, getting to a place where we are comfortable with this whole new set of expectations will not be easy.  The free-for-all that has been summertime has set us up for some serious transition pains.  For example:

Day 1.  Middle child, Zip, upon being asked to read a list of words containing short vowel sounds, and after refusing flat out with bottom lip protruding, decides to close his eyes.  Sitting up at the school table.  For many minutes.  Despite cajoling, urging, encouraging, and then finally getting all up in his grill and bloody well commanding he get his act together, he remained seated, upright, eyes closed.  Removed, limp, from stool, he was tossed like a sack of potatoes placed on the nearby sofa.  Where he remained. Eyes closed.  For many, many more minutes.  I actually thought he fell asleep.  OK.  I could but stare in fascination.  Was this some out of body experience I was witnessing induced by profound aversion to words with short vowel sounds?!?  After standing confused, bewildered and taken aback, completely unprepared for acting out in quite such a fashion, I assigned other miscreants some independent work and sat down with him.  I gathered up his lifeless form and snuggled him up for a good long hug.  Well… I’ll be damned.  The child perked up as though to a first, fresh morning snowfall.  He jumped back onto his stool and got down to business. Little bugger.

Day 2:  Eldest miscreant, while not nearly as dramatic as his younger brother, pulled the scrunchy, red face, teary eyes with every activity.  Everything is “just so ha-aaard….”  Uh-huh.  ”Awwwwww-wwwww.  Do I have to do this?!?!”  Uh-huh.  Slam workbook.  Slam binder.  Flip pages so as to be sure they tear from their holes. “Unnnnghhhh-ghhhhh… whyyyy-yyyyyy?!?!”  Uh-huh.  Remind me again… why the hell am I doing this?!?

Day 3:  Today is why I am doing this.  While not eager little beavers, at least productive and far more receptive.  We did some interesting stuff mixed in with the onerous… and everybody stayed pretty much with the program.  It was a great day… until….

 Zip.  Darling Zip.  Decided, in his efforts to buy a Wii, that he would not give back the money he conned out of his younger sister the day before.  As I removed a couple of loonies and a toonie from his sweaty little palms, he let out the wildest of possible yowls.  Otherworldly, without a doubt.  From the depths of his tiny, wiry little body, coins gripped painfully in his tiny hands, he screeched for the heavens, every muscle tense sinew as his face contorted with agony… before he started his path of destruction.  Anything in his reach was thrown with reckless, disturbingly aggressive abandon as sister and elder brother ran for the hills…. sent outdoors in a complete fit, adding insult to his apparent injury, he dropped one of his precious, beloved coins in between the boards of the deck.  Ack!  

Six year old tantrums are a trip.  I’ve been a lucky parent in that I’ve never had to leave Wal-Mart with a banshee of a toddler.  Tantrums have never really been our thing.  Make no mistake, we’ve had other things… exhibitionism, for example.  But never really tantrums.  But now, at six… and they are wild.  And frustrating.  Because he knows better.  

Thankfully, upon frantic Googling this evening, I am relieved to find it is not abnormal.  Incredibly unpleasant… but not abnormal.

Day 4?  I do believe I’ve seen the worst… so bring it on! I’m ready….

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