Graduation

I am clearly terrible at updating my blog, because my last post was about Sergeant's attachment therapist, and she's already graduated from said therapist! Once we identified what the issue was and had a plan to tackle it, things got better fast. There is still no doubt in my mind that insecure attachment was behind the issues. She is no longer having "fits," and has accepted that Mommy is in charge and therefore, she doesn't need to be. Her blog name, Sergeant, doesn't really even suit her anymore...maybe I'll have to come up with something else!

Aside from Sergeant's issues, the transition back-to-school has been pretty rocky. Over the summer, when I wasn't working and Sunny and Smartie were not in school, I thought the whole single mom thing was a cinch. Now that I'm working nearly full-time and we have homework and activities, it is brutal at times. At least a couple times a week, I feel like I'm just not meeting everyone's needs. Sunny is in fourth grade and has much, much, much more homework and studying than she's ever had before. And with her ADHD, she needs someone to sit with her and keep her on-task during homework. The other night, I decided to let her do her math on her own because I was busy with the other girls. She sat at a table in my bedroom where it was quiet and relatively free of distractions. Pretty soon I heard her singing loudly. I went in to check on her and she was sprawled on my bed with her homework. I thought, "Oh well," and let her be. She finally finished the assignment after 40 minutes or so. When she got the assignment back, she had nineteen wrong (out of maybe thirty problems). And she's and A/B math student. Luckily, her teacher made her correct it - in school, thank God.

Smartie doesn't have as much homework, but she has to read aloud to me nearly every night. She's required to read for ten minutes, but she prefers to read for much longer. We're reading a chapter book together and she loves the story and the quiet time with me. There just isn't enough time in the evening to fit it all in. The times that Sergeant has been a real stinker have been the nights that I've been busy helping with homework from after dinner until bedtime. She finds a way to get some negative attention when that happens!

Anyway, we're starting to get into the swing of things and figure it all out...but single parenthood is just as difficult as it's been made out to be.