Homework Battle #4

Counselor: I asked Jonathan to come back next week with examples of three social skills and why they are important. He didn't give me too hard of a time.

Jonathan: I'm not doing it.

Counselor: Why not?

Jonathan: Because it's homework. I already have enough homework, I don't need more.

Counselor: Well, you don't have to write anything down, let's just talk about it.

Jonathan: Not going to do it.

Counselor: Well, we'll see.

Following week

Me: Jonathan wouldn't even discuss social skills with  me.

Counselor: Why not?

Jonathan: I told you I wasn't doing it. It's homework. I already get homework from school.

Counselor: We'll let's go back. We'll see if you get any computer time or not today.

One hour later

Me: So did he talk about social skills?

Counselor: No, but he did display a lot of them tonight.

* * * * * * * * *

Same subject: different day

Jonathan: (full rant) I hate homework! Why do I have to do school work at home? Why can't I just do school work at school?

Me: (heavy sigh) Are we going to have this battle every night through 12th grade when you graduate?

Jonathan: Pretty much.

* * * * * * * * *

Huh? I walked in from the garage to see this amazing site! It's Sunday. It's Sunday morning. Jonathan is sitting down with a book open and writing answers from the book onto a piece of paper. What miracle do I see here?

Me: Jonathan, what are you doing?

Jonathan: My homework.

Me: Your homework?

Jonathan: Yes. Sunday School homework.

Me: You are doing homework on your own.

Jonathan: Yes.

Me: Why?

Jonathan: If I turn it in, we put more marbles in the jar. As soon as the jar is full, we'll get a prize. Something like a pizza party or ice cream party.

Me: (Widgets turning in my head to see about instituting something similar for all other forms of homework.)

* * * * * * * * *

I know I've been saying this for awhile, but I AM moving from Blogger to Wordpress and to my own domain. I experienced about a week and a half worth of technical difficulties. I spent all day Saturday creating databases, deleting databbases, "one click" installing Wordpress, uploading Thesis, detecting an error and starting all over again. (Because I don't know how to fix, just delete and restart.) My husband took me out for dinner and asked me how it was going. I said, "The first time I tried to install WordPress and upgrade to a Thesis theme, it took me several days and the help of Betsy to muddle through. Now I can install Wordpress and upgrade Thesis in five minutes. The problem is that I still don't know what I'm doing."

Now if I were mamaontheedge, I'd find a YouTube video of someone dancing. But I'm not, so you'll just have to imagine me dancing. Just got off an 2 hour and 15 minute Internet connection with Martin in Hong Kong. Between GoogleTalk and CoPilot, he was able to talk me through checking my installation and upgrade to Thesis, help me to back up my blog content and system changes weekly, delete all unnecessary files, introduced me to a new FTP site (a whole lot easier than the one I was using), increase the security of my new blog from spam and hackers and import my Blogger files into WordPress. And that was just the major stuff I asked for his help with. He gave me some advice along the way. Martin has an incredible website called Creating An Awesome Home Business with lots of great and easy to understand information on WordPress, Thesis, SEO, etc. I lived on his site and read everything available before I "hired" him to help.

I have to tell you, it was all I could do not to tell him how cute his accent was. I understand he's originally from Zimbabwe. Now he lives and works in Hong Kong. He sounds just like my sister-in-law and nephew from England. I tell you paying for his time and expertise saved me MONTHS of learning the very hard way. (And I know I'm learning, because I already figured out some of the things he was showing me...it only cost me two to three weeks of time and aggravation.) What I love about Martin is that he doesn't do the work, he talks you through it so that you can do it yourself after the Internet call is disconnected.

Update: mama on the edge sent this to me. It's she awesome!