I’m usually pretty laid back about life.  I believe in balance. That Rome wasn’t built in a day. And I’m trying very hard to effectively manage my work vs home life – which is challenging when your office is right next to the bedroom and upstairs from the kitchen.

When it comes to my kids’ schoolwork, however, I turn into tiger mom. And let’s just say that my creative vision doesn’t always match theirs.

Which became the my and brightboy‘s first argument of the day… He refused to get into “proper day wear” and instead slouched around in his onesie.

“Mom, you’re the one who always says the best part about working from home is that you can wear your tracksuit pants and flip flops all day.”

brightboy – 1. Mom – 0.

It’s hard to watch your kid sprawled out on your office floor, taking his good time to work through two pages of maths that you KNOW only takes 30 minutes, IF you stay focused.

It’s harder to watch him want to spend the entire day doing science “because it’s more fun” and not stick to the schedule as laid out in his Google Calendar.

And it’s even harder to watch him take frequent Lego breaks in between doing work.

Lesson of the day: this control freak needs to ease up. All I need to do is ensure that he can turn to me for help when he needs (we had an awesome 30 minutes on the bed, thrashing out the maths issue he was struggling with).

Because here’s the thing:  He is actually learning, willingly, and he’s happy.

Oh, check out the shark pic he drew this morning… The science theme – and project theme – for January is sharks.