triumphs, sweet triumphs

12/14/05
 
 it's 7 am and i'm up and writing. usually at this time i'm up and rounding up my children with a rousing "time for breakfast". here at our household we eat breakfast at the table at 7am. al or i cook some eggs for roni and wim- "one dipping egg please". usually bert chooses one egg but he likes his egg over hard between 2 pieces of bread/not toasted. he also chooses a bowl of cereal on occasion.   i eat one of the following, i like to change it up-yogurt, peanut butter toast, cereal, or eggs, in case you were wondering. al likes eggs too.

 i really enjoy cooking eggs. we have a large griddle that can fit about 8 eggs and i have become a master at the flip. hardly break an egg yolk anymore. so today instead of flipping eggs i'm writing as our school has a 2 hour late start today due to the snow. too awake to go back to sleep. have to be there at 9:30 am so i've got an hour to kill. wim's watching senseless cartoons, he's an early riser. was up and in the shower before 6am. i rustled bert out of a deep sleep to get started on his homework. he got home at 10:40pm from his wrestling matches. his record thus far is 7 wins 6 losses. he's doing very well and he feels really comfortable on the team and with his coaches.

wrestling meets are borrrrr-ing! i went the other day and it started at 4:30 and we left at 7:30pm and he wrestled 3 matches (which was a total of about 7 minutes of bert actually wrestling- which was thoroughly exciting and i guess worth sitting through the other 180 minutes).    i know some of the other kids on the team so i could watch them, but i certainly don't care about watching 2 kids wrestling from other schools. my butt was sore and i was bored out of my gourd. luckily wim and roni made some friends to play with so they were occupied. there's one cool mom i've met that i chatted with for awhile. but i kept thinking of all the things i could be doing- christmas shopping, napping, writing an update.

 so anyway bert's up writing definitions for vocabulary words for history class-- trying to bullshit us about this assignment being turned in already, that the teacher made a mistake on the homework sheet and it really isn't due, this worksheet isn't due til the day of the test. bullshit bullshit bullshit. we can see through all of it now. we know him better. he's nearing shut-down mode, when he just harrumphs his head down on the table and laments loudly "i don't know how to do it!"

while not feeding into his sad attempt at getting OUT of doing the work, we gently (and i do TRY very hard to keep the annoyance out of my voice, although many times i am not successful) encourage him to keep working at it. give him a little tickle here a little tickle there to get him back on track with mood, then he soldiers on with the assignment. what it would take another kid, 30 minutes to complete, takes bert an hour and a half to complete with loads of handling from us to get it done.

 oh-- i just heard it "i don't know what i have to do!!" shrieks bert. al's there working with him. oh no.  al just said with some exasperation, "well what's the assignment then?" which is really a kiss of death question because bert's practically pre-wired to lie.

 "are you trying to be difficult?" says al next. al is persistent. and al finally gets bert back on track. bert works for a few minutes looking up a word- "assess isn't in here dad"

al-"What? they took assess out of the dictionary? well i'm gonna have to assess the situation here. where's the number for webster's??" al's so funny and good at using comic relief to distract them from their crappy ways.

new topic--

just heard from wim "dad my arm hurts"

al-"remember i told you it's a bruise and you just have to wait til it goes away" we could tell him that 100 times a day and he'll still say "my arm hurts" like there's something we can do about it.

well- life is good here. it's a daily struggle to parent our kids and be a parent, but our lives have
changed so drastically and significantly for the better in the last 6 months that there are rewards
now. simple, small, gigantic, complex changes for the better.

 the other day roni walked up to me at school while i was talking to another teacher and she did not
interrupt. she waited minutes until i was done talking. she considered another person's needs
before her own. triumph!

yesterday at bball practice, wim's task was to get his coaches last name and phone number and find out when the next game is. he got all the info requested (triumph! and highly unusually responsible behavior) PLUS went one further and asked his coach for a ride to the game on saturday in case we couldn't go (double triumph!, took care of his own need without acting helpless).

one morning when i came out of the bathroom from getting ready  bert was sitting on the couch reading a book (a normally acceptable and encouraged activity, however the kids have to do their chores and take their supplements first thing when they wake up).   i asked him if he had done his morning things and he answered honestly that he hadn't done them with no excuses or arguments. (triumph!)

i added one unpaid chore to his list as is the usual consequence for not following a rule- so he was grumpy and harrumphed around doing his chores for 10 minutes but before i left for work he found me and gave me a big hug and said he was sorry for not doing what he was supposed to do and changed his snotty little attitude into a happy one in less than 10 minutes without any immediate intervention!   (what a triumph!!)

the other day wim  and i were playing scrabble on the computer and i was winning and he handled it with the grace of a regular 12 year old boy when his mom beats him at a game, asked me for another turn to try to win, asked me for a rematch, made up a stupid reason that he lost-he had hit the submit key too soo.     but he DID NOT call me a cheater or pretend that i did not win or get pissed or try to quit before the game was over (the usual happenings in this situation- yeah he's a blast to play games  with (dripping with sarcasm)  but maybe he is becoming someone fun to play with!?!?!) (triumph!!)

 al is a treasure. he teaches me about parenting by being a good model. he's amazing with our kids and has the patience of someone not living in our home!!    i don't know how he does it, but i know why he does it.    he does it all for me.   i admire and  appreciate him so much.