On Pools and Pottys and Expectations

Or, on being Shirley "I've got my happy face on today!" Hastings.

Remember waaaay back last summer when I was all, "Olivia can swim!" Well, I do, but apparently Olivia doesn't. Yesterday I held a little swim clinic in our bathtub where we could practice some important swimming techniques like, oh, putting your whole face in the water. Other clinics have included laying face down on an ironing board in order to practice using "big arms." Although the most progress that we made with that one was to get her arms to stroke forward rather than backward. Yes, it looks as uncomfortable as it sounds. And now we've spent every weekday evening of the last two weeks at the neighborhood swim team practice where I watch her smile and smile and have the greatest time ever, except that the whole time she's clinging to either the coach's neck or the kick board. And, strangely enough, she totally thinks she's a swimmer!

I'll let her think it until tomorrow when they have the Time Trials and then they kick her off the team because she can't swim the full length of the pool on her own. Never mind that it's really me--the one pacing at the side of the pool during practice giving out additional instructions and acting like an over-zealous stage mom--who will have to be let down easy when it comes to this finality that swim team is not in her schedule for this summer. Ok, ok...I know it doesn't matter, that there's always next year, that at least she's happy....but I had such high hopes! Oh, Shirley, I get it.

And then remember when I was all, "Isabel will totally be potty trained before the baby is born!" Well--surprise, surprise--she's totally not. I might as well have announced that I was giving my cat cooking lessons and putting him in charge of this year's Thanksgiving dinner. We've run the gauntlet of success and failure over the past few months with a particularly low moment on one day where by the end of it she had pooped in her pants five times (who poops five times a day!) and I couldn't help but take it personally. Please, please, please tell me you've been there too. There I was, kneeling in front of her next to the toilet, my hands gripping her shoulders, and my face in hers, and all the frustration comes boiling out as I basically lose it telling her, "YUCKY! YUCKY! YUCKY!" And, her little lip starts quivering, and in my mind all I can think is, "That's right, you just go ahead and cry!"

Let's just say, using shame as a method of potty training is equally unsuccessful.

And here I didn't think that these expectations were all that outrageous?! But until they're ready, I'm going to do the best I can to just wear my happy face.

p.s. Olivia is now asking me if she can go swim in the bathtub again. So can we count that as progress?