Today I stayed at work until 4:30--2 1/2 hours after I am supposed to leave--then had to make my way through rush hour traffic from downtown to the outskirts of the city, where I live. I picked up Colin by 5:30, went home, gave him his "down time" with the iPad, said hello to Dylan (who was waking up from a too-long nap) and his nurse, Rhonda, a red-haired woman with Betty Boop scrubs and a high-pitched voice who loves on him three times a week.
After heating up leftovers and feeding Colin and me, I set Dylan up to feed, gave Colin a treat of rainbow sherbet, and looked over Colin's math homework. This was going to be a long one, especially with Jason out of town.
Getting Colin to focus on math after a long day is painful for both of us. I tried to make up a game out of three-number addition (as in adding three one-digit numbers) using his hippy-hop, in lieu of actually having a hint of how it is being taught in class. Besides, modern pedagogy is girl-centric, I keep hearing--boys need activity. After the hippy-hop experiment failed (hard to keep track of bounces when you're also counting up from a number), I simply leveled with Colin. "We're just going to have to figure these out, one by one. And you need to focus. We can use pennies if you want. And we'll take two-minute breaks at the end of every row."
I knew he was pained by this exercise. But, he sat down and worked through them with me. Sometimes we used fingers, sometimes pennies--I even let him draw circles if he had wanted to. He was so happy to be able to choose his method (something that seems to be discouraged in school) that he focused well and worked through them more quickly than I anticipated. After he got into the groove, he even recalled several two-number sums without counting, which got us to the final adding step more quickly--and that made us both jubilant. We finished over half the worksheet tonight. Tomorrow's a long day with an early start.
All this time, my Dilly is watching TV and making happy noises. He gets the short end of the stick, with regard to attention, when we have to do homework into the evening. He suffers when our schedules get too busy. But he just smiles big, babbles and spits raspberries, and loves our every touch--even if it's just on a break between rows of math problems.
I am supposed to be parttime at work still, but my commitment has had to expand out of sheer necessity; my department is in survival mode nowadays. But, I realize that many people do this every day after their full time jobs--with two or more fully functional kids or even kids with special needs--and with spouses who travel. And they survive. I wish I knew their secrets. Giving up sleep, perhaps?
But Dilly's time is precious--more so than most of ours--and quality time with Colin, devoid of school pressures or hounding to get through shower and teethbrushing, is precious. And both are fleeting, each in their own way.
Please, God, let there be more time tomorrow for something other than the mundane.
