Ten years ago today, my eldest daughter Miss Z slept inside my tummy for the last time.
Time really does go by in a flash and the worst part is that our memories don’t keep everything, every moment, every funny joke, every way they said difficult words, the memories just fade.
Sometimes they ask me, “‘Mommy, do you remember that when I was 3 you told me that if I was good for 3 years you would give me £25?” Errr, no darling, I don’t remember 😉
And so, ten years! And so many situations, so many cries, so much laughter, loads of yelling too. And so much love!
I think human beings have a hard time experiencing unconditional love. Probably because we all had, some way or another, troubled childhoods, which made us feel that love is conditional.
But then we have kids ourselves. And no matter how many times they are naughty or mean or disrespectful or just plain rude, we still love them. Completely, fully!
And so it came to be that Miss Z is arriving at an important date in her school journey. She has to write her 11+ exams. For those unfamiliar with this, the 11+ are a set of exams that kids need to write if they want to have a shot at getting into a good secondary school. Normally these schools are oversubscribed and so they “filter” the students by testing their abilities.
There are several subjects to the 11+ exam and one of them is Maths. I was very good at Maths and so whilst Miss Z’s granny is helping her with the other subjects, I’m meant to help her with Maths. Only one small problem, I’m a terrible teacher!
I say this because I have experience. My professional career actually started as a teacher. I just don’t have the patience for failure, for lack of understanding… I see something so clearly, that I cannot comprehend how the other person cannot.
But my intentions are good and this is my child so I thought I’ll make an exception. I will be fine. I can control my temper. Let’s do it!
I took the last two days off work. Miss Z is on half term, so the plan was to do a Maths marathon.
Yesterday she did 5 tests (from an assessment book) and failed miserably. After each test I marked it and explained where she was wrong.
She is a little butterfly and can’t stand still. Always fidgeting. It drives me insane. Still I managed not to loose it.
Today I decided to change tactic. First I gave her the same 5 papers to do. She did much better in them than yesterday but the results were erratic. Sometimes she failed in places she had gotten the answer right the previous day, sometimes she got it right in things that she clearly didn’t understand, which led me to believe she just memorised the answer.
The marks degraded as the day went along. After lunch I gave her a new test. This time I explained the test to her beforehand. We went through it and she had to show me that she knew how she was going to get to the answer. She scored 100%. Both of us were ecstatic!
So in the next one I did the same thing. But again she seemed sometimes to not understand the most basic things. I was frustrated because she only scored 76%.
In the last one she led me to believe she knew and understood things when I explained but then scored only 34%. Needless to say that each time, I was getting more and more impatient with her.
At the end of the day we were both exhausted and I felt awful for losing it with her and making her cry.
After her bath I tucked her in bed and laid by her side for a while. “I’m sorry I am so impatient. I wish I was more patient with all of you. It’s not your fault. I should be a better Mom. I feel I should have spent more time with you, helping you”.
Her reply, “patience or no patience, you’re a great Mom, and I love you”.
“And I love you sweetie, no matter what!”.
We can teach them about the world, but they teach us about love!