Do You Ever Stop And Listen?

The worst thing about fighting your daughter is that it is basically fighting yourself! My 10 year old is a spitting image of me apparently (although I can’t see it) but there’s no denying she’s got my attitude through and through. We will be mid argument and she will give me “The Look”, or the Jerry Springer head roll or side slant, for which I apparently am known for and all of a sudden it’s like someone has switched my channel and I’m arguing with myself.  

While having a mini me is sometimes “Hair pulling, scream the house down, want to stomp my feet at nearly 30”… Other times it’s great. (All of a sudden I realise I must be a handful to live with… must check with the husband later).  As a child I loved school work, not school just the challenge of the work, and so does she, which is great. She pulls straight A’s at the end of each year, smashes her assignments and one afternoon her punishment for giving her brothers the answers to their homework was “No homework for you for a week!”… While other children would jump for joy, she was not impressed!

So today is Sunday, a nice mellow Sunday, yet my daughter – Miss A. decided she wanted to do some school work. After realizing I wasn’t going to win the “It’s a Sunday lets relax” argument, I gave her 2 assignments to do. 

1.       A sum:  How many minutes in 3 weeks; without using a calculator or computer. No later than 2 Minutes had passed and she came waltzing up to me with the correct answer… 30 240 minutes in 3 weeks. 

 

2.       A Short Essay on “Do you ever stop and listen?”… I didn’t tell her any more than that; I wanted to see how she interpreted it. This was her answer…

Do You Ever Stop and Listen?

By Miss A. (10 Years Old)

Do you ever stop and listen to the sounds the Earth throws at us? It might be when you are in the shower or even under a tree but there are always different sounds.

Next time you are taking a ride on a bike, just stop for a second and listen.

When you are in a park on your own, you may even be thinking what is that sound? Well listen. It may be the most beautiful sound, birds chirping or trees swaying. Even though they are everyday sounds, they each have a long story to tell.

Sometimes when I lay down in bed I close my eyes and just listen. I Listen to the crickets, laughing of people, trees and birds or even snoring. Then you forget about it, go back to listening again and there is a completely new sound.

While it’s not that enjoyable listening to your brothers argue, or baby shows on television it’s still a sound.

Sounds like wind and water, laughter and happiness, birds and crickets… They are the sounds you hear when you stop and listen…

Listening to the sounds of the waves.

While I didn’t give her any angle to write her short story/essay on, she nailed it and understood it as I had hoped. Proud Mama right there... Although I was secretly prepared for a “Do you ever just stop and listen, geez!!!” kind of article, since that’s sometimes how the cookie crumbles.  

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