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Most of us wouldn’t even consider getting our bikes out so early in the season, but I know of one little trooper who couldn’t wait to break some new trails. There was just one problem. His helmet was in Grandma & Grandpa’s trailer in Florida. I finally decided that in the absence of a helmet, the only thing he would be allowed to ride outside would be his tricycle. Surely that was a safe option.
I hadn’t considered that he’d be breaking trails on the tops of snowbanks. Oh well, live and learn!
Independence – Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
One morning last week Connor woke up and asked if he could go downstairs. I told him sure and that I’d be down shortly. I was still upstairs a few minutes later when I heard Connor yelling, “Mommy, come down here!”. I trotted down the stairs and found him in the kitchen. To my amazement, he had two muffins (that he’d dug out of the freezer) unwrapped and ready to go, his chair strategically placed in front of the microwave, and he was trying very hard to open the microwave door. Yikes! I finished the process for him. There’s no doubt in my mind that had he been able to open that door, he would have gone ahead and started pushing buttons too. I don’t think I’m ready for that level of independence yet – too many what if’s. On the other hand, if I show him the right buttons to push on the microwave, stove and barbeque maybe we’d have some better meals around here. Naaaaa, better give him a couple more months. Time for a chat about not cooking without Mommy there to help!
Multi-tasking is a buzzword that describes handling or carrying out multiple tasks or jobs at the same time. I am not a multi-tasker. I do not multi-task. I have made a conscious decision not to multi-task. Okay, there are small exceptions such as doing laundry, making supper or reading email while keeping my eyes and ears on Connor to know what he’s doing and where he’s doing it, but I don’t think of those as true examples of multi-tasking – they are more instinctive or intuitive than anything else. I’ve chosen not to multi-task because I believe that when I try to do more than one thing at a time, one or more of the jobs I’m trying to accomplish suffer as a result.
Not too long ago on a free weekend, I made a plan to get through all of the items on my ‘to do’ list. The day before the actual weekend arrived I was going over my list and suddenly, as though someone had walloped me on the head with a baseball ball, I was hit with an explosive feeling of being overwhelmed. So intense was the feeling that all I wanted to do was put on my flannel pj’s and curl up in bed for the weekend. Sleep it all away. At that point I didn’t want to do any of the things on that list anymore. The number of activities I had planned to do was absolutely ridiculous! These weren’t just things I was going to do for myself – I had things planned to do for other people as well. I had crammed so much activity into those few days it would have been impossible to carry half of them out in any sort of respectable fashion. OMG! That was when I decided that I cannot please everyone all of the time and that included me. We are all guilty of taking on way more responsibility than we can reasonably handle. That list proved it to me. And who was responsible for that list? ME – I planned it and I wrote it. I needed to take a step back and reassess the situation.
Rather than curl up and hide I re-wrote the list. I eliminated the wants and concentrated on the needs. I also phoned the people I had planned to do things for and essentially asked them to re-write their lists. I asked them “What is more important to you – would like me to do this or would you like me to do that?”. By the time my list was revised and rewritten I felt that I was able to breath again. You might think this is an example of me going off the deep end, but I prefer to think of it as a lesson in multi-tasking disaster prevention. In order to get through and cross off all of the items on the original list I would have been doing some serious multi-tasking, not to mention teleporting. If I was that overwhelmed by the mere thought of trying to do so much, imagine what would have happened had I actually attempted it? Can you say psych ward?
And how did that weekend turn out? As a result of that lesson in multi-tasking disaster prevention, I completed and crossed off the important items that others wanted done and worked my way through most of my needs as well. Everything received the full attention that it was due and if there was any unsatisfied feeling of “Oh crap, I should have done that too!”, it was overridden by “Man, that turned out better than I expected it to!”. Will I ever feel overwhelmed again? Oh, yeah! Will I ever multi-task? More than likely (only under duress), but I will definitely concentrate on what really needs to get done as opposed to everything I want to get done. It’s in my nature and the nature of many people to want to help others who need it. We just have to remember that the world will not come crashing to an end if we occasionally say no.
What do you do with a boy who has no fear of water and thinks he can swim? You put him in swimming lessons, of course!
Connor started swimming lessons last week in Listowel. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it went reasonably well. Typically, in small towns, lessons are set up to run in two-week blocks – one lesson every day for two weeks. Because Connor is only in Listowel for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week, the normal way of doing things wasn’t going to work with our schedule. For this reason, I chose to go with private lessons. I was able to book the lessons for the mornings of the days he’s with me. He is working one-on-one with the instructor which means there are no other kids in close contact to distract him and the number of lessons required is fewer. They generally do three lessons, then depending on the child’s progress, will schedule two or three more lessons as needed.
So, how did he do? Monday was pretty good. It’s hard for a little monkey to get used to someone new and learn something new all within a half hour, but I thought it went pretty well.
He was blowing bubbles with his face in the water. He would have preferred just his mouth, but with other lessons going on at the same time in other parts of the pool, the water was a little wavy, so even though he may have only planned to get his mouth in the water, the wave action took care of his whole face.
He can do big star fish arms and legs, but is a little uncomfortable with relying on someone else to hold him in a back float or front float position. His kicks are terrific and he has a new favourite song – Motorboat, Motorboat. Tuesday on the other hand was not good. In fact it was bad. He cried for most of the lesson, the instructor didn’t understand him when he told her he wanted to “ride on front”, and he could not be bribed. For Connor, riding on front means he wants you to hold him close so he can put his arms around your neck. Kind of hard to do swimming lessons while riding on front. She tried to bribe him with a trip down the slide, but he said “No thank you”. He was polite, I’ll give him that, but he was also definite – there would be no bribing! To her credit, the instructor was very patient and kept trying to get him to do different things. He did a few bubbles and a few star fish positions, but he just wasn’t into it. Tuesday night at bedtime we talked a lot about swimming lessons in the big pool. Wednesday morning rolled around and Connor and I talked a lot about swimming lessons in the big pool. We arrived at the pool and while we were waiting we talked a lot about swimming lessons in the big pool. We also sang Motorboat, Motorboat. When the time came to go in for lessons he went quite willingly. Aside from being cold because it was a yucky day, he did very well. Lots of blowing bubbles, better floats, rocket ship hands and lots of trips down the slide.
Ahhh, perserverance pays off. Like Dory say’s in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming”. We’ll see how long the happy thoughts and good times last when he finds out we are going back on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll be sure to post an update so you can see how he gets along. I know inquiring minds will want to know!
