Every morning, as I stand in front of my sink, brushing my teeth, contemplating the day ahead, I pray for one major thing. "Lord, please give me the strength to not lose my temper with Caroline today." My prayer life is not good because about 1 1/2 hours into school work with Caroline, I'm sucking in great gulps of air in an effort not to go right over the edge. First, it is the look on her face which would cause one to think that she had just smelled a rotten egg- nope, it was just her math book. And then how many times is it possible to spell because, beecuz, and not sense that is wrong. Would shock therapy jolt a person out of that? In kindergarten it took the entire school year to convince her that eleventeen was not a number. She was finishing up a science book on the moon the other day, and paused in her reading to exclaim, " Mom, did you know that they put an American flag on the moon?" I responded, " well, of course, Caroline. Neil Armstrong put it up when he landed on the moon." She gave me a puzzled look and said," Who is Neil Armstrong?" I sighed, paused for a moment to find more appropriate thoughts amongst the storm of words that flooded my brain, and said, " Caroline, we just spent two days at the Kennedy Space Center. Do you mean to tell me that you still have no idea who Neil Armstrong is?" She thought about that for a few minutes. " No, mom. I didn't really pay attention that much. But the food was good."
It is at this point that I just start crying and blubbering myself into a hynotic stupor.
