If you were wondering where I have been over the last few days, I went on my yearly retreat up to my mother’s cottage. This year was a little different as I went up with my daughter and thus we had to entertain a young one which is difficult in a rustic setting. Still, I think we all had a lot of fun. Lots of swimming occurred, we went to a couple local restaurants, my roommate went kayaking down the river, we had a ton of s’mores around the campfire (not to mention grilled cheese & hotdogs), and pie at a really great pie place.
I didn’t really get to do all I would have liked; I personally like having that ability of not doing anything and just relaxing. We did do that for like one afternoon but not nearly enough. I wanted to get my daughter completely away from video games & TV on this trip which really didn’t pan out at all. I don’t think she understood just how much her toys needed to entertain her when she came up so she didn’t really have much else to do and if we weren’t willing to entertain her 24/7 then she wouldn’t have anything to really do. I realize I should have made her live with this, but it is difficult sometimes to deal with the constancy of the whining, so while sometimes I would make her live with it, sometimes I just wanted to be rid of her. She did do a bunch of exploring near the house which is really what this is supposed to be about, but I tell ya, it is times like these that I wish I had another child just to be able to play with her so that *I* don’t have to.
My last day was a huge trial with my daughter. We have a new homework book to help her keep information she learned in school fresh, as well as aid her in catching up with the rest of the kids in her class. So far for the summer I had let her pick out 2 pages that she wanted to do at her will, this morning I said she should do the ones that the book picks out for each particular day of the summer. At first she was ok, but then she saw that one of the money counting exercises had a new coin in it, the half dollar. And that was the end of it, she refused to be helped and refused to try to add fifty cents to anything, saying that no one even uses those anymore so why should she have to learn how to add it! Well this was the end of everything, in no time she had to do an extra half page, as well as losing her rights to video games for the day. It didn’t end there and she was whiney and complainy the entire day so much so that my roommate is now fed up with dealing with her and considering moving out seperately from me if we have any indication that the increased time we have with my daughter is more permanent. I don’t necessarily blame her as I don’t particularly like dealing with my daughter who has always had these two issues as well as an inability to listen. I don’t know what to do with her anymore but at the very least she isn’t getting video games or TV anymore at my house as she needs to learn how to entertain herself and it is clear that she needs those things in order to be entertained. I am also going to be forced to be more strict with her, something I don’t want to do, but something she obviously needs as she hasn’t proven to be able to handle the leniancy we often give her.