I Was Going to Talk About the Baseball Game

We went out to an Indians game last night. I was going to talk about that and the fun we had even though it was raining off and on a bit.
But let's not.
Let's talk instead about my daughter. The daughter that is so gosh darn stubborn that she makes me want to yank my hair out, re-grow it and yank it out again.
And let's mention that I do love homeschooling but oh my goodness. She can really make me doubt our decision to do it some days.

So we have been working on poem memorization and recital. I know! For a first grader?!?!! Well, this is the part that I am most skeptical and head scratchy about.... but when I read our manual, I get it. It's just the real life practice of it makes me cringe. Mostly because I knew, KNEW it would not go easy with Miss I Ain't Gonna Do Nuthin' You Want.
On Monday we told her about it. Pick a poem, practice it, learn it, then on Friday you can tell it al to us. Oh LORD! You would have thought that we wanted her to eat boiled rat brains. So struggle on Monday
( however, she learned it in about 5 minutes flat).
Some struggle on Tuesday getting her to repeat it. Because she could and did repeat it to me ad nauseum right up until I had the unmitigated gall to request that she do it for her school time.
Wednesday and Thursday- no big issue, she would recite it at will( about 752 times a day).

Today? Well? Today was a horse of a different color. I am here with her and Liam, Les is on Duty. Everyone is tired from being out late at the game. We got right up to the part about having to stand up and recite the poem.
Then all hell broke loose.
" First grade is stupid."  "I do not want to do this " " I am not going to do this" " You can't make me do this" "I will do it if you look away and I can sit down" " Why are you calling Papa?"
All in a whiney and petulant tone that sends my self control right out of the window. But I maintained. I did. I didn't loose it. I just had her stand there and I waited until she was ready to do what I had asked her to do. I did have to call Les for re-inforcement (both so she could see that he and I were on the same page and so that hearing his voice would help me not turn into MonsterMom).
She flatly refused to do it for him as well.
Two hours.
Two hours it took for us to crack that stubborn hide a bit. She never really did it without the whiney tone but hey, I'll take a partial victory.

And what was this horrible awful hellish poem?
Well, she picked it first of all.
And this is what all of the fuss was about:

Fee Fi Fo Fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

Four lines.
Four lines that she could recite back in about 2 read throughs.

It's funny really. The ends she will go to in order to torture us all.
Grinding bones indeed.