Yesterday was a busy day and I didn’t get a chance to catch a shower. I was looking forward to a bath this morning, so I sent Emma out to get some water on to boil and make some oatmeal for the kids while I enjoyed a bath. I knew instantly things had gone wrong when I came out of my room. The smell was overwhelming and I started to panic. “Emma, where’s the oatmeal you made?” “Mom the water never boiled!” “Arggg” We have been over this so many times, I really didn’t think that I would have to remind her to light the stove, sigh… is it me, why can’t she seem to solve some problems of a common sense nature? Anyway, 30 minutes of the stove spewing gas, so I opened the doors, sent everyone outside to jump on the trampoline and got things under control. How do I get her to figure things like this out. After a few minutes and the water isn’t boiling I would think she would run through some problem solving things, like, is the pan hot, or is there a fire under the pan, I know we think differently so I can’t expect her to think like I do, and I have years of experience that she doesn’t have, but it seems to me that she needs to be learning some life skills and that boiling water should be something she is capable of. Sigh… I love her so much and she is so smart is so many ways, I’ll just keep working with her.
A general question to those of you with kids older then lets say 8, what should they be able to master. She can change a diaper, although it’s not something she would volunteer to do. She can dress the baby. We’ve been working on doing her own hair, so she can brush it out so that I can do it but she can’t actually do her hair. She of course can operate the DVD player and is really good at the DVR. She can fold laundry and put it away, and she can sort laundry, but she refuses to touch the washer, although I she will switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Does this sound pretty standard for a 9 year old? Am I expecting too much from her?
Well, onto my own mistake this morning, just to remind myself how imperfect I am. Yesterday afternoon I put a chicken in the crockpot, and before bed it was finished, so Danny unplugged it to let it cool a little before putting it in the fridge and well, I fell asleep and left it out all night, such a stupid thing to do, no I have to toss my chicken, I guess it’s on par with gassing out the house. So I guess tonight we’ll have beans in our tortilla’s instead of chicken…