You might be able to tell by the comments on my son's homework that I really did not like the last homework assignment. Maybe it was because he had all weekend but waited until after bedtime on the night before it was due- a night when I was already "done"- overstimulated, overtired, just DONE.
And your assignment. Even on the best of days would have been the worst assignment, but as I've pointed out, this was not the best day or time.
My son is a great kid. He has good manners, he is helpful and respectful, smart, funny, he tries to make friends with kids who don't seem to have friends, he's a natural at karate and reads at an 8th grade level in 6th grade. He can cook, clean bathrooms, do laundry, babysit, wash the dog, sweep, mop, shovel snow, pile wood, take out the trash and all sorts of household chores. He turns 12 next week. He does more than a lot of his peers because he has a single mom who has a disability and sometimes she can't do the chores. Even when she can do chores he has to help because he's been raised that families do the chores together.
However, no one is perfect. This son in particular, though wonderful in many ways and in many things, is an idiot when it comes to doing dishes. And vacuuming for some reason, but that wasn't part of the assignment.
Years have been spent trying to teach this child to do dishes. The best we've come up with so far is having older brother wash while he rinses, dries and puts away. Experience has proven that it is best if I remain out of the kitchen during the entire process.
I don't get upset when the dishes break. I buy them inexpensively at the thrift store and keep replacements in the cupboard above the fridge for that very reason. Maybe I am more
I do admit to being somewhat of a germaphobe. I don't eat food off the floor or the ground or walk on grass that has fertilizer or pesticides on it. My toothbrush is kept in the medicine cabinet so germs don't get on it when the toilet flushes. I have also worked in plenty of restaurants and tend to keep my kitchen the same way I would at work. Dishes washed in hot, soapy water, sometimes a bleach rinse, air dried whenever possible before putting away, bleach cutting boards,etc. I also dislike most commercial cleaners like 409 and Lysol so I use vinegar, baking soda, and On Guard to disinfect, disinfect, disinfect the kitchen counters, sink, dishes, etc.especially if any type of raw meat has been used. Yes, I know. A germaphobe who is also "phobic" of most cleaning products. A paradox, I know. I'm living it.
You may easily judge me now as a control freak, but I'm really not. About most things I am pretty laid back. When the boys do dishes I only interfere when the dishes are still dirty after being washed. Which brings me back to the original point of my letter/post. Thing 2 can't seem to learn how to get dishes CLEAN. This is a sore spot in our relationship. He can't even load the dishwasher on his own after four months and many patient lessons on how to do so. Something about cleaning dirty dishes impairs brain functioning in this kid.
Tonight's homework assignment of doing dishes began, after bedtime I'd like to remind you, on an extremely busy kinda crazy day I'd like to remind you, by Thing 2 (aka Younger Child) grabbing a dish rag and hand soap. I had to stop him and redirect him to the dish soap. Which he grabbed and unscrewed the cap off. Was that really necessary? No. Neither was the inch worth of soap poured from the soap bottle (not an exaggeration! When I looked at the bottle after chasing him from the kitchen the level of soap was down by an inch!) because he didn't screw the cap back on tightly and it fell off while he was trying to squirt the soap out. Leading us to...
ARGUMENT #1! That went something like this:
Me: What are you doing???
T2: I'm sorry it was an accident.
Me: How can you unscrew the cap on accident? That wasn't an accident. An accident is something like 'oh, I slipped' NOT unscrewing the cap on the soap!
T2: Yes it was an accident, I didn't mean to pour so much or have the thing come off.
Me: Well the cap wouldn't have come off if you hadn't unscrewed it and not put it back on the right way, which wasn't an accident to begin with, it was just idiocy. You don't "accidently" unscrew something. You can't just say 'oh it was an accident' and be an idiot and make it ok.
T2: Frustrated and washing plate according to directions. Proceeds to rinse plate in cold water, also according to directions. Now I'm rinsing in cold water like the directions say to.
Me: Kind of annoyed at directions, especially since I've tried for years to teach child how to wash dishes. Wondering if dumb directions said anything about using dish soap instead of hand soap. Looking at dish as T2 dries. That isn't clean. It's greasy.
Begin ARGUMENT #2!
T2: No it isn't! How can you even tell!?
Me: Right there! It looks greasy, it feels like it and right there is a soap bubble.
T2: No there isn't!
Me: Yes, there is. And do the directions tell you that leaving soap on dishes will give someone diarrhea?..
T2: Beginning to talk over me. What? Where? No! How do you even SEE that?!
Me: IT IS THERE. I SEE IT RIGHT THERE. Rinsing plate in cold, then hot water and being a jerk.Yes, cold water gets the suds off, but did the directions say rinsing in hot water helps the dishes to dry faster?
T2: Frustrated sigh. Reaches for the dish soap-
Me: NO! What are you doing!? You already have way too much soap and that's the problem! You get an F+! No, an F-!
T2: Rewashes and dries plate.
Me: Mumbling incoherently about it not being an accident and waiting until the worst time to do this stupid homework assignment and wondering, "Where is my glass bottle?" (which shall be explained to those unknowing in a future post.)
Usually, in my own defense, I would not have been quite the monster-mom I was tonight. Usually I would not write in notes on the side of the homework paper that say things like, "I hated this. We argued!" Usually by bedtime I have at least changed out of my pajamas even if I didn't get a shower. What can I say? Some days just don't go according to plan.
After he went up to bed Julie listened to me rant and laughed at me, which was ok because it helped diffused the situation a bit. She's good like that.
Aiden came back downstairs looking for a pillow case. I tried to apologize, but I just made a mess of it. I told him it would be pretty obvious to the teacher that I had a bad attitude when I filled out his paper. I told him maybe we should photocopy the front and have Julie fill out the back for him; that would be a lot more fair to him.
Now in Thing 2's defense, he is really a great kid. He really was tired himself and had stayed home from school sick today. Friday night he spent the night at my ex-husband's for Thing 1's birthday and Saturday was a busy day of laser tag, birthday cake and then going directly to church to be the cow in the Christmas Nativity Pageant. Sunday is the Sabbath, so we don't do homework even if we aren't sick.
And most adults wouldn't have earned a much higher grade washing dishes if I were grading them. Honestly. Especially in the mood I was in earlier tonight.
My point is, Mrs. W (and all other dear readers), is that I do think he can handle washing dishes and making a cake in FACS class. I was just in BIG JERK MONSTER MOM mode when I filled out his homework paper, and I'm sorry. No one is perfect, and though I am a wonderful mother in many ways, something about grading my son doing dishes impairs brain functioning in me.
In my son's defense, he never has called me BIG JERK MONSTER MOM, even when I have been. See? I told you he was a good kid.
Just please don't ask me to grade him on washing dishes ever again.
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