Stressed out

Its been a slightly stressful two weeks. At work, I've had to work on my off-days thanks to a number of important meetings at work, preparation for audit etc. Those work days included my 39th birthday. Usually I take the day off, go off for a nice lunch as I did last year, go for a nice spa experience perhaps, but not this year. Instead I was in the office generating and compiling data for a big meeting, sitting in on meetings and ducking the cross-fire that erupted. I will take my birthday pampering treat another day when the heat is off.

On the birthright end, I had one private class and gave my usual talk during the Parenting with Grace workshop on Sunday. Also busy preparing for class this weekend. So things have been busy. The stress is not bad stress, but challenging stress, which is good.

At home, Gillian was preparing for PSLE over the past few weekends/weekdays. So that meant drilling her in paper after paper for maths. I didn't give her anything for English - I was, am, pretty confident that she can pass the English paper. It is Maths that is the big problem. Late Sunday night, I was awakened by KH's yelling and thumping of books on the table. If the sound could reach me through closed doors and through deep sleep, you know he must have been pretty loud.

Immediately I went downstairs. I saw Gillian looking sullen, KH looking murderous, shaking his head in frustration. I sat down. While I didn't want to interfere with KH teaching Gillian, I also didn't want father-daughter relations to sour either. At the age of 12, I don't think Gillian now takes kindly to loud scoldings and shouts. Plus it was late - 11+. So I just said quietly, okay, if you can't do it now (and it was a simple question: give the formula for finding the area of a rectangle!) you're tired. Your eyes are red. Go to bed.

I looked at Gillian as I said this, and saw that she was teary. Poor girl. She always takes it like a champ, right on the chin. I felt sorry for her. Even I feel tense when KH gets into one of his snits, what more her? Yet at the same time, I could understand how KH felt. I felt like this too, once upon a time. Frustrated, angry, depressed and worried.

I sent her up to bed, and spoke to her quietly, telling her to just work as hard as she could. The PSLE was right around the corner. Just push herself these few days and it will soon be over. I explained how her daddy felt and she nodded. She's a good girl, she understands, but she's hurt I can tell.

The next day, I speak to KH in the car on the way to work. I never have to belabour the point - he knows what I mean. He agreed that he needed to back off a bit or it may stress her so much that she shuts down for the PSLE. I said that he had to get things in perspective - we already know what her situation is like, so no amount of screaming, yelling or table-banging would solve things. Just got to let it go, leave it in God's hands, do what we can and not stress out about it. So I volunteered to take over the bulk of the coaching for maths - something I have not done for yonks because it affected us so badly then. That day, I took half day off, came home and tutored Gillian. Same the next day and so on.

Yes I was frustrated at times, but I was also impressed. And hopeful - something I have not felt for a long time with her. I saw that she had improved. She was not as bad as she used to be. And what made me so happy was the fact that we could sit down and do this and not have a usual round of screaming, tears etc. She told me later, mum I prefer you to teach than daddy. You're more fun and you explain things better. Now that, really made my day.

With me taking over, KH had less to scream about, or maybe it was because of our talk in the car. He let go a lot over the past few days. So we kept revision tension manageable in the days running up to the PSLE.

We kept the tone casual in the morning as I wished her good luck for the PSLE and said, just pretend you're doing it right at home, and mummy is right there, telling you the usual thing: read the question, don't guess. I told her, and I believe this: you can do this.

She came home after the English paper, sounding chirpy and confident. Then at night, I let her sit through a two-hour specimen PSLE maths paper. She scored 79/100. So we left it on that note for the night. I showed her the many loving messages that I got on my phone for her - from Barbs, Cory, Mags, etc. Mama smsed all the way from Israel to say that Gillian will always be uppermost in her prayers. Uncle Paul said 50 for every subject she passes. Gillian said gleefully, 50 what? Dollars of course! Both of us were touched by Aunty Pam's message telling us that she would say the rosary with Gabriel for Gillian that night and send her baby angel Paul to watch over her. I think so too - that baby angel Paul must have been right there.

This morning, she went for her Maths paper. It should be about by now over as I write. I am keeping my fingers crossed. The results will be out on Nov 22 - and we will be in Kyoto then. We will get them from her school when we return.