How It Adds Up
This morning, when I went to wake up Short-pants from her heavy slumber, I found her curled up on the floor beside her bed. She’d removed herself and her covers from the mattress and appeared to have slept on the floor. Every light in her room had been left on overnight. Her bed was covered with little one-inch squares of paper, each one with a math problem, column addition or subtraction. Each one with a solution. There were at least a hundred of these little squares peppered over the bed, like confetti after a victory parade. What midnight madness seized her?
The thing is, I do kvetch about my kids, and they do tire me out. But when I come upon a scene like I discovered this morning – the fascinating evidence of a little mind at work, overcoming her insomnia, entertaining herself with math problems in the middle of the night – well, then it’s clear that the positives outweigh the negatives on this whole mothering thing. In the end, it all adds up to something pretty good.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I did the same thing!
Carolyn
June 30th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Astounding her ability to become absorbed in computation! In the silence of the dark night. My daughter of just-nine has been waking me nearly every night for 2 weeks. And part of me says its my fault … she gets needy like this when home life is rocky. Which it is (blame the economy?)… like a stifled, exhausted rockiness–one she is so dang keen to pick up on. So, geez, I wish my wee gal could find nocturnal meditation in analytical stuff such as that mess on the bedspread!