No One's Going to Tell HER What to Do

Cal’s swimming lesson on Sunday is a family affair.  We all go.  Not that we intentionally laid it out this way, but we’ve all fallen into specific roles and routines for this weekly event.  Cal, of course, is the swimmer, the star of the show.  Dan takes him to the locker room to change into and out of his bathing suit.  Ella is Cal’s biggest fan, and I’m responsible for Ella – holding her, picking up her baby, making sure she doesn’t fall into the pool, taking her potty… just keeping her in check.

Once Cal’s lesson is over, Ella and I head to the lobby to wait for the boys.  A few weeks ago, I unfortunately started a tradition of grabbing a Gatorade from the vending machine for all of us to share.  Sometimes, I insert the buck fifty into the machine, sometimes I let Ella do so, not so much because I think she’s really up to the task (images of my only quarters falling under the machine always flash through my head), but more so because she’s just stronger willed than I am.  If she wants to put the money into the machine, she makes sure to make me miserable enough to just give up and let that happen.

A second after we get the Gatorade, Ella’s grabbing it from me, insisting that she get a drink of it immediately.  “I know… I have to open it first, Baby Girl.  Be patient!” I always tell her.

Once the plastic cap has been broken from the seal, she’s aggressively grabbing for it again.  “Want Gate-r-ade!” she exclaims, with a cringed brow and a stern frown.

“I know, be patient, Ellie,” I tell her as I take the first gulp from the bottle.  There is NO way I’m going to hand her the full bottle of Gatorade considering how sloppy she is with a full bottle… cup… bowl of anything liquid.  These Gatorade bottles unfortunately do not have the water bottle cap on them – they just have a simple screw-on cap and a spill waiting to happen when said cap is not screwed on.  Ella does not yet fully appreciate everything the sippy cup did for her for the past year or two.

Anyway, I eventually hand her the Gatorade bottle very slowly and deliberately.  She’s still sloppily grabby, but I manage to hand it to her without incident.  I watch her put the bottle up to her mouth, at first with her lips fully surrounding the opening.  Not like that, this thought is written all over my face and my hand starts to butt in to help.  She actually figures it out on her own and puts the top part of the bottle inside her mouth with her bottom lip resting on the outside and then tips the bottle quickly.

“Slowly!” I tell her and I reach to take it from her, which is met with a stern “No!”

“Ella, we’re sharing,” I remind her and take the Gatorade from her.

We continue this back and forth, me trying to control consumption of the Gatorade and ensure sharing is occurring, Ella insisting it’s hers and that she’ll give it to me when she’s good and ready.

And then Cal emerges from the locker room.  “Can I have some Gatorade?” he asks pleasantly.  If I’m not holding the bottle at this time, I manage to wrangle it from Ella’s strong grip and hand him the bottle.  Ella watches every gulp he takes, maybe even counting them, waiting to pounce on the bottle when he first comes up for air.  Most of the Gatorade is either gone or spilled on the lobby floor in the transition back to Ella at this point.

Last Sunday, a family watched Ella’s and my “sharing” of the Gatorade and eventual hand-off to Cal.  For some reason, when it came time to leave, Ella was particularly upset and uncooperative, surely for some reason Gatorade-related… or maybe not… we never really know.  Every request we made for her to get moving with us out the door was met with a “No!”  I don’t remember, but there may have also been a body flop and tantrum on the floor, too.  What I do remember is finally picking her up and having this exchange with the mom next to us as we walked out:

The mom (smiling): “I guess no one’s going to tell HER what to do, huh?”

Me (eyes wide open): “Right?”

The mom (pointing to her daughter, maybe 8 years old, sitting just in front of her): “She was the same way.”

Me (focusing on the word “was”): “Ah, but it comes to an end soon, right?”

The mom (shaking her head): “No.”

Me: <Pretend crying>

The mom: “Well, it’ll be a good trait for her to have when she’s an adult, right?”

I guess so.  If only I could get myself to the point of being genuinely content and relaxed amid so much personal suffering and stress now for the greater good of my kids later.  If only…

Ella's Tree

Early this morning, just awake from their not-long-enough summer's nap, the kids drew pictures in the kitchen for Dan.  At this point in the day, I was hopeful that these would be a few of many small, simple gifts they'd be giving him throughout the day as thoughtful ways to say "Happy Father's Day, Daddy" and "Enjoy your day, Daddy."

They both sat at our kitchen table with Cal's Crayola art set laid out in front of them.  Cal, our skilled artist, drew a baseball-themed picture, a scene he had drawn before, using a blue pen.  He had finished drawing the batter and the catcher when he caught a glimpse of what Ella was "drawing" with a red marker (against my better judgment -- the general house rule is that Ella is not to use markers).

I don't know if it was the many times that he heard Dan's and mine sickeningly proud enthusiasm over his and Ella's simplest achievements, but he laid it on thick.

"Ella, you drew a tree!" Cal exclaimed to Ella, now looking up at him proudly.  "You drew a red tree!  That is SO GOOD!"  And he gave her some assistance really making it look like a tree by scribbling a brown trunk Ella-style on one side of the red tree.

"Mommy!  Look!  Ella drew a tree!" Cal now officially brought me into the mix.  Here's what I saw:

"I see! Ella... that is such a good picture!" I responded upon laying my eyes on this gem.

And that was Ella's tree, which, other than a good swimming lesson and a pair of slacks and a shirt, was the last of the simple Father's Days gifts the kids gave Dan today.

It's Not Appropriate to Pee in the Cup

Cal may get up from his cozy bed to fall asleep on a rough, carpeted stair.  He also may not yet fully understand the importance of using toilet paper and opts not to use it more often than he does use it.  And he may eat dog food (just once).  Despite these facts, he's actually a pretty sharp kid.

Yesterday marked the start of the Stanley Cup Finals, and our beloved Blackhawks were (and still are) playing.  We had been at my dad's for most of the day, visiting with him, my cousin Jenna (in from Seattle) and my sister Erin and her boys Aidan and Zach.  A storm was passing through, so we were finished playing outsde and were all gathered inside in front of the TV.  The game was on, but was cutting in and out -- the storm was messing with the satellite signal.

Cal and Grandpa were cozily sharing a seat in the corner, the younger one chewing the older one's ears off with somewhat nonsensical stories about what, no one's really sure.  Cal does spend most of his awake hours talking or just making noises, so it wasn't surprising to me that he was monopolizing the conversation.  My dad can also be pretty chatty, so I did hear him manage to sneak a few words in.  His words were on the topic of the Stanley Cup.

Jonathan Toews holding the Stanley Cup (2010)

I forget exactly what my dad told him the Stanley Cup was -- some kind of prize for winning the championship or being the best, I'm sure.  I do remember him telling Cal about what's been done to/with the Stanley Cup, though, mostly centered around it not being the cleanest of things.  The Cup fact that most peaked Cal's interest was that people have urinated in it, or on it, or both.

Cal asked a few questions about that and made some more comments about peeing in the Cup, and my dad learned he probably shouldn't have brought this up -- drink from the Cup, yes; pee in it... maybe something to save for when Cal's older.

At any rate, Cal got back to monopolizing the conversation with the theme of the Stanley Cup when I heard him say this, "... and this is not appropriate," followed by something to the effect of "to pee in the Stanley Cup."

I'll never forget Jenna's expression after hearing him use the term "not appropriate."  She was dumbfounded and said, "is that typical?"  I was thinking she was referring to Cal's age group and not Cal, so I answered, "not really."  But it is typical of Cal.  The kid's been correctly using terms and understanding concepts beyond his years for a year or two now.

So he gets that peeing in a championship cup is "not appropriate."  Now, if I could only get him to connect that falling asleep on the stairs, not using toilet paper and eating dog food are also "not appropriate."

It's My Potty and I'll Cry if I Want To

A little social potty time (March, 2013)

I'm pretty sure that my two reactions to Ella's accidents last Sunday won't make it into any parenting magazines or potty-training books as effective and the right way to approach them.  If anything, my reactions would probably be good examples of what not to do.

Patience, encouragement and over-the-top praise aren't working on our semi-potty-trained girl.  Sunday, I decided to take a different approach, as if there was really a conscious decision to do so.  Really, I fell into a couple of rants using words she surely doesn't yet understand pretty much with the goal to make her feel bad.  And looking back, unlike most moments when I lose my cool, I really don't feel bad about it.  Call me small, I don't care.

I've gotten yelled at for trying to help her get her pants down or sharply told to "go away" after plopping her on the toilet too many times to feel bad about yelling back.  I've lost too many battles getting her to just try to go potty after a long (dry) nap only to have to clean up a puddle on the carpet shortly after to feel bad about making her feel bad.  We are more than accommodating of her potty whimsy with 4 regular toilets, 2 potty chairs and 3 adaptor seats to better fit little buns on big toilets. I've praised her excessively and rewarded her with stickers of her choice for successful potty visits.

Even a successful day of using the potty is a test of patience, particularly with a head-strong, independent, "do-it-self" kid.  Whether initiated by me because it's just time or by her own realization that she has to pee or poop, she doesn't act with the same urgency I do to get her little buns on the toilet in prime position -- while I'm predicting an accident will occur in 7 seconds, she's thinking about what book she wants to read on the potty or insisting that baby sit on the potty first.  And heaven forbid I offer to help her get her pants down.  If I do manage to pull them down for her, she's oftentimes pulling them back up so she can pull them down herself, mad at me as she does so.

Why it was Sunday's two "accidents" that generated a less-than-patient reaction out of me and not Saturday's "accident" on the carpet or the previous week's 4-accident Sunday, I don't know.  I just snapped.

Sunday, after retrieving Ella from her nap, I strongly suggested she use the potty.  "Let's go potty," I said a few times.  "NOOOO! Don't want go potty!" she exclaimed with each apparently awful suggestion.  Yeah, right, I thought.  Despite her insistence she didn't need to go, I managed to get her to the toilet, her pants down and her buns on the potty.  I even put her baby on the portable potty on the floor thinking she might be feeling a little social.  "You can show Baby how to go potty like a big girl," I told her.  She didn't bite.  "Mommy has to go potty, too -- you go potty first, and then Mommy will go potty," I tried with no success.  We continued our struggle until I had nothing left.  She beat me.  I then I foolishly swapped her nap Pull-Up for a pair of undies.

The next thing I knew, she was peeing on the kitchen floor, fully aware of what was going on but yet not bothered by it.  I, on the other hand, was bothered.  So I laid into her about it.  I felt justified -- afterall, not 5 minutes before then I had strongly suggested she use the potty.  I used phrases like "trying to make you successful" and "appreciate a little cooperation," as if she really knows what either of those mean.  And I yelled as I aggressively pulled her wet pants off, lifted her out of her puddle of pee and cleaned her and her mess up.  She cried, and I didn't care.  And then I spent the next five minutes dramatically darting from laundry room to bathroom to kitchen no longer yelling but still cleaning up, upset and ignoring my shadow that was Ella.  Eventually, like a 2-year-old myself, I threw a pair of undies at her to just put on herself.

Later on, as I prepared dinner (admittedly, I was heating up leftovers) for the kids, I could hear the sounds of them playing well together in the living room.  Coming off of some highly-involved Mommy-Cal-Ella time downstairs, I was happy to know that I could remove myself and they'd continue to play without me.  This ended when Cal peeked into the kitchen and announced, "Ella's peeing on the floor."  It clearly didn't register with me, so he repeated, "Ella's peeing on the floor," and pointed in her direction to really drive it home.

Cal's a pretty helpful tattle teller (as in, "Mommy, Ella's using a marker!"), so I knew this was really happening.  I grabbed the paper towels and darted into the other room to find her wrapping up, a huge puddle of pee sitting underneath her and starting to swarm around her bare feet.  She was showing no signs of feeling bad about it, and I think it was this that bothered me the most.  As I started to lay into her, she looked at me with a smug smile on her face, ignoring everything I was saying to her.  I continued yelling as I cleaned her and her mess up.  I don't even think I got her a replacement pair of undies -- she ran around the house with naked buns for awhile after that.

Had she actually tried to make it to the potty but failed, I would not have laid into her like I did.  I get that accidents happen.  I have a really hard time calling these potty incidents on Sunday "accidents."  Maybe the second one was a legitimate accident, but coming off the first one with Ella's obstinate, negative handling of my requests for her to use the potty just prior to her peeing on the floor, I was too pissed to consider it anything but Ella being difficult to get a rise out of me.  And don't forget the smug smile as she did it.

I was wrong to handle these the way I did, I know.  But I really don't feel bad about it.  And there's really no telling for sure, but maybe it worked.  Ella had a great, accident-free, potty-cooperative Saturday.  Will we see that again on Sunday?  That remains to be seen.  At a minimum, I've "re-booted" and don't expect to fly off the handle if we don't.

No Talking, Just Soccer

Dan and I read earlier this year that starting your kids in organized team sports before they’re 5 years old for the sake of learning to play that sport is just a waste of time (said, of course, more eloquently).  The article suggested that taking your kid to the back yard to bat a ball around a bit or take him to the park to kick a soccer ball around is perhaps more productive and easier on the pocketbook.  This is why I didn’t sign Cal up for tee-ball this summer – seems like we were better off just sticking with our backyard for a little while longer.  Besides, I don’t think I started in organized sports until I was 8 or 9; so waiting a year to get Cal started, he’s still ahead of my schedule, which seemed to have worked pretty well for me.

That I signed him up for this soccer camp this summer probably contradicts my conclusions from that article.  I really only did so because Cal repeatedly expressed an interest in it and because I wanted him to be a part of something organized, social and different than daycare.  I had no expectations around skill development.  That was, until last night.

Getting dressed and into the car to head to soccer was a breeze.  I have the weather to thank for part of that.  Afterall, it wasn’t hot, so I was comfortable giving in and compromising on the types of clothes he would wear to soccer – short sleeves (my wish) but long pants (Cal’s).  As he got dressed, I planted several seeds about the future – he would not ALWAYS be able to wear long pants, that it’s going to get hot and he’ll have to wear short pants soon… the usual song and dance.  They say it’s best to prepare your kid for change, so I am constantly preparing Cal for shorts with the hopes that when the time comes to actually wear them, he’ll either do so on his own accord or he won’t fight me too much on it.  Yeah, right.  I think this approach just spreads out the pain instead of having to suffer in the moment itself – the mere suggestion of shorts usually gets him pretty fired up.

“First day of soccer today, Baby Bear,” I had said repeatedly throughout the day.  “You excited?”  With every question, he indicated he was excited.  That was, until we actually got to soccer and it came time for him to walk to the field from the parking lot.  ”Actually, I don’t want to play soccer,” he said.

“Yes, you do.  C’mon – it’ll be a lot of fun!” I told him, lying a bit because is soccer actually fun?

“NOOOO!” and then he stepped in front of me and said, “Carry me.”

“No, I’m not carrying you to the field.  You can walk.”

“NOOOO! I don’t want to play soccer,” he said sternly and stopped walking.

I kept walking and coaxing him to join me – I was ready for the battle, which fizzled out pretty quickly, I have no idea why.  I had used this approach in other instances only to have to backtrack, fight and figure out a different way to move forward.

So we were at the field, and camp was just getting ready to start when Cal announced, “I have to go potty.”  What?  No you don’t.

“You went right before we left, Cal.  You have to go potty again?”

“Yes,” he responded.  We were in an unfamiliar, open field.  What do I do now?  My problem-solving skills kicked in.  He’s a boy – I could just take him off in the distance and have him pee on the grass.  Is that okay?  Wait.  Is that a porta potty I see over there?  It is! “Okay, Cal, let’s go!” I grabbed his hand, and we started running to the porta potty in the distance, giggling all the way there for some reason.

When we got there, Cal stepped in and naturally looked into the “toilet.”  I always do, too, I don’t know why.  “Ew, gross!” he exclaimed.

“I know.  Don’t look at it and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING,” I insisted.  “You can go here instead,” I said, pointing at the urinal just to the left of the toilet.  If I were a boy, I’d prefer that.

“I want to go here,” he responded, pointing at the toilet.

“Okay, just DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING,” I repeated.

He peed his 3 drops of urine and was finished; and we darted out and ran back to the field, just in time for the start of camp.

There were 11 kids, all supposedly four years old.  Cal was certainly one of the bigger kids, if not the biggest.  Of these 11 kids, 9 had shin guards buried beneath long soccer socks, and a couple of them even had cleats.  Now, I watched these kids – remember, they’re supposedly 4 years old – for an hour, and I didn’t see any movement out of them that really justifies a need for cleats.  They prance and wander; they don’t cut and run with much of a purpose.  So my kid was one of two without shin guards or cleats, and he wasn’t the wiser.

Coach Bobby is the guy who runs the camp.  A nice guy with a lot of enthusiasm and patience, Coach Bobby, seems perfect for the job.  He introduced himself to the kids, some of whom appeared to already know him.  Must be because they took one of those classes at daycare or maybe even the 3-year-old camp last summer.  And then he asked the kids to introduce themselves.  Each kid was to state his name and his favorite movie.  About halfway through the introductions, it was Cal’s turn.  Say “Les Mis”… say “Les Mis," I thought.

“What’s your name?” Coach Bobby asked.

“Cal.”

“And what’s your favorite movie, Cal?”

“Cars 3.” Cars 3?  Is there a Cars 3? I mean, Cars 2, maybe, but Cars 3?

With the introductions finished, camp officially started with some warm ups and a couple of little games with the goal to instill in these kids that they should not use their hands on the ball and should only use their feet.  This is the first Cal heard of this rule, and I think it’s going to take a while to sink in.

Then the drills started, with a little instruction just before each.  The kids learned about pull-backs and dribbling and did many drills centered on practicing those sets of skills.  There were one-skill drills, as in “do two pull-backs.”  There were some combo-skill drills, as in “do two pull-backs and kick the ball toward the net.” One drill had the kids dribbling in place (back and forth between their feet), and another had them dribbling around a circle of cones, avoiding the inside of the circle where the alligators were.  Yet another drill had a limited number of balls, each to be dribbled by one while another tried to take it away – the one with the ball was to do a pull-back when the steal was attempted.  He even had them play a little game of red shirts vs. yellow shirts.

Cal doing a pull-back -- he looks good!

Coach Bobby’s instructions before each drill were pretty clear to me; however, what I saw rarely matched what was requested.  I saw many a kid touch the ball with his hands.  I cringed as I watched kids nearly roll their ankles as they attempted the pull-back; in a few cases, I saw the ball go forward with a pull-back attempt.  Some didn’t even try the pull-back.  I saw kids run well beyond the confines of the field, kicking the ball uncontrollably the whole way; and I saw kids run crying to their parents because something hurt.  All the kids were eaten by alligators on more than one occasion, running inside the circle instead of outside.  And a couple of them thought it was fun to knock the soccer net over.  Exactly what we read in that article, I thought.

Cal loved it all and excitedly participated in every drill.

In the middle of one of the drills, Cal just stopped and called to Coach Bobby, “Coach Bobby!  Coach BobbyI  I have something to tell you.”  Coach Bobby responded, “No talking, just soccer.”  Classic.  And Cal got back at the drill.  What it was Cal wanted to tell him, I don’t know.  Heck, he probably didn't even know.

During the steal-the-ball drill, Cal and another kid were chasing the same ball.  In their hustle to get to the ball, the kid tripped over Cal and fell to the ground.  He started crying.  Cal stopped in his tracks and, concerned and clearly feeling bad about this, he turned to the kid and said he was sorry, that it was just an accident.  The kid kept crying and eventually cried his way to this mom on the sideline, and Cal still stood still and repeated that he was sorry.  Proud of him but not wanting him to dwell on it too much, I said to him, “it’s okay, Cal -- go get the ball now.  He’ll be okay.”  And so he did.

Anyway, over the course of the hour, I made mental notes of things to work on with Cal before the next camp day.  Don’t touch the ball.  Pull-back.  Dribble the ball with your feet.  The whole concept of offense and defense.  The notion that it’s okay to try to “steal” the ball from the friend with it when stealing is part of the drill or the game.  All of a sudden, I had expectations around soccer skill development for my sub-5-year-old.

It was with about 10 minutes left that Coach Bobby herded up the kids and handed out the red and yellow pinnies for a team game.  One after another, I saw Coach Bobby hand a kid a pinny, a little distracted as he did so – kids struggled to put them on as they got them, and he had to jump in and help the kids with arms poking through neckholes or not in any holes at all.  He handed them out until only my kid was left without one, just sitting their patiently.  Hand him the pinny… hand him the pinny already... JUST HAND HIM THE PINNY ALREADY, I thought.   Coach Bobby assessed the colors, I’m assuming to make sure 5 of each had been distributed, and then finally handed Cal a pinny, which he grabbed and put on himself.  He didn’t care that he was last and had to wait so long, which was the right mindset.  I, on the other hand, was bothered by the delay in my kid getting a stinkin’ pinny, which I don’t fully understand since he was okay with it.  Oh, oh... I'm screwed. I'm going to hurt more for my kid than my kid actually hurts.

Overall, Day 1 of soccer was a success.  Cal capped it off well with this from the middle of the soccer field after most of the kids had headed to the sidelines, "See, Mom - when I first got here, I was shy and didn't want to play. But I did and had fun!"

He helped Coach Bobby pick up some balls, and then we both left with smiles on our faces, smiles that continued all the way to Wendy's for a couple of Frosties to celebrate a good soccer day.  Good soccer day?  Did I say that?