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…
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