I love my child.  I do.  My love for him far surpasses the hatred he has for writing.  And he has a deep, dark hatred for writing.

Bizarre irony, don't you think, considering his mother has a desperate, twisted love for writing?

He's in second grade, now.  In kindergarten, I'd get calls from the teacher saying my son gets distracted during writing practice, and doesn't get his work done.  We chalked it up to his age.

And the fact that he's a boy.  The maturity thing, you know: boys mature slower than girls, blahblahblah. 

Then when he was in first grade, I had more than a few meetings with his teacher about how he slacks off during writing.  He'd be fully engaged for math, science, reading... everything else, except writing.  

Now he's in second grade, and here we go again.  I work with him at home on his writing, teetering on that wire between holding him accountable, and making him feel I'm using writing as punishment.

It's brutal.  There are tears daily.  Sometimes they're his.  My kid's hatred for writing is murdering my soul.  

I blame his father.

Not to brag, but I was a great kid.  I never gave my teachers any problems.  I'm such a people pleaser, desperate for approval and pats on the back (God, that sounds pathetic, now that I've said it out loud), I always tried my best in school.  

My first grade teacher even wrote, "Krissy is a model student" in my report card, and I pretended I didn't know what that meant, and asked her to explain it to me, just so I could hear her tell me verbally how amazing I was.

But my husband.  I've heard the stories.  If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: we'd have never gotten together if we'd gone to the same school.

He was defiant and naughty.  Smart, but smart-ass, too.  

He's the reason my kid doesn't get his writing work done.  He's the reason my child is slowly and methodically stripping every ounce of life left in me. Pencil stroke by (the painful lack of) pencil stroke.

I love that man, but why should I pay the price for his disastrous childhood behavior?  Let me take this moment to thank GOD for the United States Marine Corps for whipping him into shape.

Is that what's going to have to happen to my baby boy?  I can't bear the thought of him going off and joining the service.  And fighting a war!  He's got asthma, and tiny Fred Flintstone feet, he'll never survive boot camp!

Good grief, I've gotten myself all into a lather.  Maybe I'm overreacting. 

Any advice to help me get this boy some much-needed writing practice without making him want to throw me in the trashcan? (He actually told me that once, when he was about four years old. I told him if he didn't apologize to his brother, I would ground him.  He said, "And I will throw you in the trashcan!")

Lord help me.