Patience, patience

I am not a patient person. If there’s one quality the parent of a child with learning disabilities should have, it’s patience and I don’t have very much.

Yesterday was a typical afternoon at my house. My son got home from school at 2:45 p.m. and I reminded him that he had a book report to finish before he could play with friends and before Tae Kwon Do class at 5:45. Three hours, plenty of time. The afternoon unfolded something like this:

3:00 p.m. -- Finished snack and checking on his online game he had left running all day. Computer gets turned off. 

3:05 – He looks outside to see if the rabbits had eaten any of my new plants. No damage to report as of yet. 

3:07 – I hand him his AlphaSmart and his book. He sits on the couch to begin working. 

3:12 – He goes outside to check on rabbits and starts building a trap to catch them. 

3:35 – I ask how it’s going. He says “Good” even though I see the AlphaSmart on the couch. I take it outside. 

3:45 – From outside he calls for help. As I check on his progress, he says, “I think there’s only one rabbit living under the deck” and he starts banging on the deck with a golf club to encourage the rabbit to make an appearance. 

3:49 – Back inside, I wonder if it’s too early to have a glass of wine. 

4:01 – The phone rings and a friend invites him on a walk. He asks me how long it will be until he finishes his homework. Good question. I tell him about 15 minutes if he could sit down and write. Finally, some motivation. Back to the couch. 

4:17 – After a flurry of activity, he hands me the AlphaSmart to read his report. Not bad, just needs a final paragraph to wrap it up. He heads to a friend’s house to swim at 4:35. 

7:45 -- After Tae Kwon Do and dinner, the report is transferred to the computer and, amazingly, in one sitting, he corrects and formats his report. 

8:00 – I finish that glass of wine I’ve been thinking about since 3:49.