What day is it today?

I was going to write that it's been a week since I last wrote, then I went, "Wait a sec. What day is it today?" I'm not sure it's a good sign that it's only Tuesday and I think it's later than it is!

Ah well. Yesterday started off well. I was determined to have work get done and that determination and enthusiasm spilled over to dd and Bob--they both got started on writing stories and spent a good 45 minutes on it. The 16yo however... I don't know what to do about her, to be honest. She's not motivated--and she admits it. She's unfocused. She really doesn't want to be doing any of the work she's been doing, so she fights it by being unfocused. That's how I see it, anyhow. Despite daily "reminders" of how we have a choice in how we look at things and other reminders along those lines, it's not helping. Even just yesterday, somehow the topic came up of people having bad days, where one bad thing after another occurs. I said something about it all depends on how you look at it--you can see all the things as bad and focus on that or you can just stay positive. Then she recounted a day not long ago where it was one thing after another and how she tried to stay positive but it didn't work. There's something off in her expectations, I think. It's almost as though she figured that by staying positive, nothing else potentially bad/annoying would happen, but that's not really the point!

Further to her expectations... I still have to work on her concept of learning and tests. She did a physics quiz last Friday and half-way through kept repeating the mantra, "I can't remember this." Well, it really had little to do with remembering and just thinking, to the point that dd and Bob, who were "doing" the quiz in the background (it's an online quiz) were able to correctly figure out the answer. Of course, that, I believe, just made her feel stupid. Maybe that's what all of the struggles recently with her are really about: lack of self-confidence. She doesn't feel like she can (she had a very rough time with her exams), so part of her is holding back from doing it. Soooo... How to build her self-confidence with this? How to give her some daily moments of success? How to help her find her motivation? Long-term goal setting doesn't really work at the moment because part of her is convinced she can't achieve it. And she's already behind in pretty much all of her work and getting further and further behind each day because she's not doing enough. Focusing on that, however, just gets her really discouraged. Hm...

With Bob's gr. 11 physics success last Friday, and with him asking if he can do physics, I'm tempted to actually propose to him that he start gr. 10 science next year (he's in gr. 8). The reading and writing might be beyond his capacity at that point, but what a motivator! Another something for me to think about.

But, back to yesterday... Started off great, but then fizzled. As soon as I started working on math with the 16yo, it kind of all fell apart. I tried to do spelling with dd and Bob at the same time, which kind of worked, but dd had gotten into one of her funks (because she'd gotten all frustrated with her story from earlier) and the 16yo's focus was on how long and confusing her math question was... We went to park day in the afternoon, and that was really nice.

Other than that, my mind is preoccupied with where dd's toque has gotten to. :( We had it on Friday for sure, I told her I had it in my bag, which I'm fairly confident that I did, but after that, I don't know where it ended up and we only discovered yesterday that it's lost. We only bought it a couple of months ago, along with a toque for ds, which we lost within the first week. :( *sigh* She didn't play outside on the weekend and she didn't go to any stores. She did go to swimming, but says she didn't have it with her (I think I may still check the pool today) and we went to Mass, and I know she didn't have it then. I guess there are 3 possibilities: 1) we lost it at the ski hill or somehow on the way back, 2) it's in the house somewhere because I didn't put it away right away when unpacking my bag on Friday, 3) she lost it on the way to, at, or on the way back from the swimming pool. Part of me keeps thinking it's in the house, but I don't know where. Fortunately, I found her old toque downstairs on the weekend (before even knowing the other one had gone missing), so she's able to wear that, but misses her new toque!