Winning and Losing

Well, today has been R-O-U-G-H mostly with Claire just not listening, not having self control and having unexplainable tantrums. Is she really almost four? Sometimes I get flashbacks of two... so to decompress while I FINALLY got Eden down and Claire still has 20 minutes of quiet time, I blog.

Today's blog is about winning and losing as we have all experienced in life before. But this is different to an almost four year old. She is having to learn that she doesn't always win and that she must always remember to do her best. That's what counts. The joy isn't always in the winning but the fun we have playing. Yada, Yada... my parents told me that too but seeing it as a parent I now know that it really IS hard to learn this lesson (and REALLY hard to teach it). I still know some adults who are really bad at losing so it must be an ongoing battle for some.

With Claire getting older we've been playing a lot of games and having a lot of fun. She is learning how to follow the directions (not an easy thing to learn either) and again, learning that she's not always going to win when she plays. This is a valuable lesson so yes, sometimes I let her win and sometimes I win on purpose. What's a mom to do? She is getting better but I believe this will be a toughy as she gets into more activities and sports the next couple of years.

Today was a hard lesson in just that. Not necessarily winning and losing but seeing others accomplish something when you don't even when you've tried your best. Claire has been taking swim lessons since the beginning of January and they are still trying to get her to put her face all the way in above her ears while blowing bubbles. This is a tough one for most the kids but the others have gotten more courageous the past couple of weeks. Claire practiced in the bath tub this week:


but she accidentally inhaled some water up her nose so she freaked. I believe this has set her way back because now she isn't blowing bubbles like she used to, she's covering her goggled eyes (what?!), etc. So today when we were getting ready for lessons, I told her she just needed to try her best. That she could do it. I knew deep down that the other kids would probably accomplish the task today, get their medal and ring the "I did it" bell. It broke my heart thinking that my sweet girl who has already come a long way and is trying really hard might really get her feelings hurt when she wasn't included in the ceremony.

My prediction was right. The kids did well and Claire did great on everything except for the whole face in the water thing. She had the biggest smile on her face when she came out until she realized the other kids were getting rewarded. She cried her big ole tears and said "But I did a good job!" Break a mama's heart... she did a GREAT job and I reminded her of that over and over as well as telling her she did just what she was supposed to do - try her best. This is the first time I've experienced this with her and it truly made my tummy turn. I reassured her that we'd work real hard this week and she'd get better and better and get her medal sometime soon.

Anyway, all that to say that this parenting thing is so hard. Love it to pieces but it does stretch you like no other job in the world.

On another note, as she came out of the pool it was snowing so I tried to get that to distract her. She wasn't too interested. Kind of ruined the who joy of "it's snowing" moment. It was pretty icy all morning and when we came home, this is what we found.

Hope to see more snow today =)