Being flexible.

I have a kindergartner…who hates homework. He would hate school too if not for his super duper amazing teacher. School has been a MAJOR adjustment for us this year. Homework invokes tears and tantrums of frustration nightly. Which has led me to put it off until the very last minute, which for us is the weekend since it comes home in weekly packets. Also, by doing it over the weekend I can try to delegate to Dad who is much more patient than I am. I have tried every incentive, every time of day, every method to get it done. A few days ago I took a few minutes during a car ride to explain to my little guy what being flexible means. I've unsuccessfully tried to have this conversation before about how not every day is your day or going to go your way. Sometimes we have to do hard things that we'd rather not do. I've tried to reason with him about taking turns and not losing it when you don't get what you want. That night in the car the perfect words came to my mind as I thought about his homework earlier that day. I explained that being flexible means that when we make a mistake on homework we just scratch it out or erase it and try again. When we don't get what we want we try to use words not tears to explain why we feel the way we do. I told him that everyone wants to be friends with the guy who can let it go and make a new plan when something doesn't work out. Nobody wants to be friends with the guy who freaks out and cries when he doesn't get what he wants. He has taken this talk to heart and so have I. Every time I see him being 'flexible' about something I point it out and praise him. When we see his friends being flexible, I compliment them. When the 14 year old brother is freaking out because we didn't leave early enough for his choir performance, I ask my little guy to remind said brother what being flexible means. (We all had a good chuckle over that one.) There are a lot of other words you could use besides flexible in this little life lesson we are trying to teach him but this one seems to work. I love him, milk mustache and all. I love his little five year old hands. I want to remember everything and soak up every last bit of him. I want to enjoy every second of my youngest child because he wasn't going to be my last but my life isn't turning out quite like I'd planned and I'm trying to be flexible. :)