This was my Facebook status this morning----The
power of silence: I love how profound and amazing my children are. Last
night Marlayna said this, "You can teach the world without a sound.
That means you can share the gospel by being an example. You don’t have
to say any words at all. Just by knowing you people will know Jesus."
She's such a shining example of greatness and a true disciple of Jesus
Christ.
My daughter IS amazing. She is every good descriptive word out there. And I am truly truly honored and blessed to be her mom. Sadly, like with most good things, she comes with some less than glamorous characteristics. Along with all her wonderful greatness, she also has 'a dark side'. An ' I'm too smart for my own good' side. One that makes me wish we could just stick with her insightful awesomeness.
I received a call from the school today, which I always assume is them calling about a sick child and I need to hurry over there to pick them up, but it never is. So far this school year I've received over 4 phone calls from the school- Can Marlayna please be in a special peer assisting group helping struggling students, did you know Mark J has broken his glasses 3 times and they've been super glued by the office, did you know James is color blind. Are you aware..... Did you know..... Apparently my children are higher maintenance than most and I need to get over the only reason the school calls is because of illness.
Today's call was from Marlayna's reading teacher. Marlayna is in the 99th percentile nation wide and in the highest reading and math group in her grade. Mrs. W called to inform me that today was another difficult day. During parent-teacher conferences last week we learned that Marlayna, along with her numerous good qualities, has a sarcastic, stubborn side (WHAT?!??! I KNOW!! It's SUCH a shock for anyone who knows EITHER of her parents). Her teacher showed us an example of one of her 'refuse to conform' assignments. The question was "what is the setting of the story?" Originally Marlayna answered, "The setting is bad bad bad bad bad." but erased it and wrote instead, "I will not answer this."
Today's incident was similar. She had written no no no no no no no no no no no no no to fill the spaces given for the first question and then blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah for the second. Given a second chance she wrote one word answers. Her teacher told me that she then asked Marlayna to provide more detail in her explanations and she retorted, "Is this READING group or WRITING group?" Trying to encourage in-depth, thought required answers her teacher then said, "How 'bout we pretend I've never read this story and you're giving me details of it so I can know what the story is about." Miss Marlayna shot back, "If you're so interested in knowing what the story is about why don't you just read it yourself?!" (INSERT ENORMOUSLY WIDE EYES AND SHOCKED SPEAKLESS EXPRESSION) I asked over the phone how she was able to restrain herself from slapping my daughter! She replied that it was a rather intelligent response and pretty funny when you think about it. (This woman is a saint for not considering backhanding my snot-faced kid! She deserves a medal for her dedication to educating children like mine)
Ay yai yai!!
At a complete loss as to what to do for this child to make it sink in and change her attitude. We've talked to her about needing to do what's asked at school in order to move on to more challenging work since she finds the tasks so boring. And needing to be respectful and obedient to her teachers. And being a good example to her classmates. And constructively communicating with her teachers. And......And......And......And...... But seriously I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!
For starters this kid is baking a giant 'I'm so sorry I treated you like that' cake and writing an EXTRA wordy apology card.
