Venting about homework

Really, like I said in my last post, do I get paid for this job?

Every night is a struggle with homework. Every. single. night. Matt and I have told Megan that she should just have her fit and then go do her homework. If she starts by 5 or so, the homework will probably be done by bedtime.

So here is how tonight went:
7:10 PM done with supper and we ask Megan to go do her language arts. She had already done her math and handwriting on her own (Amazing!!), so we thought we wouldn't have a battle.
We were wrong.
From 7:10 until 7:40, she stomped, yelled at dad, spent time in time-out, got frustrated some more and then finally started to write her outline for her essay due tomorrow.
In the meantime, I have been waiting all weekend to watch "The Amazing Race," my ultimate favorite show, and I did not want to be interruped. One hour is all I wanted.
But the last 20 minutes, all I got was interrupted because somebody needed help with the outline.
7:40-8:00 pretty much nothing done except when I would I would let her ask me questions during commercials
8:00-8:30. I try to give Christian a bath and to bed, get Courtney to clean her playroom and take a shower, and CONTINUE to help Megan with her homework.
(at 8:15, I shut Christian's door so I could put him to bed without interruptions)
8:30 Christian is in bed, Courtney is showered and ready for bed. I now have time to help Megan. Yes, I am kind of frustrated at this point.
8:30- 9:20 I help Megan with her homework. She had half a page done by the time we started.
9:20 Megan is no longer cooperating because she has been dealing with this for about 2 hours. I declare her done, I am done and out of patience, and I send her to bed. We tell her that she cannot read any books before she goes to sleep. Lights out, good night! (While we were working together, she did get quite a lot done.)

Here are my thoughts since I am venting.
1. Why is homework not done before 8:30 on a Sunday night? She has the entire weekend! It would be much easier if I would just make her to do it on Friday after school. But by that time, I am done school and I just want to let her go play.

2. Why does she need my help right when I am trying to get the other two ready for bed? Really, I can only deal with one at a time!

3. Is it so hard that she needs my help? Her assignment was to fill out an outline on a piece of paper and then write an essay from the outline. We had a brainstorming session on Friday, so she had all her notes in her notebook. They were just completely out of order. I thought she could take her outline and put them in order, then it would be a whole lot easier to write her essay. This was a more challenging assignment, but I thought she could handle it. She acted like she knew what to do on Friday, so I let her do it as homework. If she didn't understand, I would've done it in class with her. I would've rather have done that than staying up on a Sunday night to do it.

4. How am I going to continue with school tomorrow when homework isn't done? It's just very frustrating because this happens every single weekend. You would think that after 30 weeks of school we would have this figured out! (Actually this assignment wouldn't be hard to make her do it for Tuesday but that's not the point!)

5. Hopefully someday she will thank me for making her write these essays every single week!
Actually I think they are great assignments. She gets to be creative and write about a myriad of topics, but sometimes I think that since she is only in 2nd grade, maybe she shouldn't be expected to do things like this yet, but yet I see her write a 13 page story at home without a problem! So I know she can do it, so I continue to challenge her. I know she's just learning and maybe the inner teacher is coming out in me and I expect too much of her, but Matt and I both think she is capable.