Postcards From Holland

You know that song from "Sound of Music"; "How do you solve a problem like Maria"? This song should be about my daughter. Most of the time she's pretty cooperative. She loves to sing songs and play with the cats and do puzzles. But there are moments that I wonder who she is and what she did with the real Egypt. Today was no exception.

It was going to be a busy day. We had ceramics, then Egypt had an eye dr. appointment and then swimming lessons. Well, after doing a half page of his logic book, Holland fell asleep on the heating vent. I let him sleep and we missed ceramics. I debated getting him up; wondering if it was just his way of getting out of schoolwork. But I think he's not been sleeping well and it's affecting the rest of his day. We had already planned on my mom coming by to watch him while I went to Egypt's eye appointment. I couldn't remember if she was going to have eye drops at this one and it could take up to 2 hours if that was the case. After my mom dropped Holland home, we went straight up to swim lessons. Holland was a little sassy but then apologized and said he wanted to do a good job during his lesson. He ended up being only half the problem.

As soon as she got in the water, I knew that I'd be spending most of the lesson correcting Egypt and getting her back in the water. She refused to do any work for the instructor. I came downstairs and pulled her out of the water. We had some conversations about obeying and the consequences. She refused to get in the water. I took her in the bathroom for some more conversating. We had 5 "conversations" and she still refused to get in the water. I took her back to the pool, told the instructor I didn't know what to do (she's the only student in class - so we are getting private lessons without the cost). I asked what would happen if I threw her in. She said "go ahead". So I did. She came up sputtering a bit, but I can tell you that she obeyed the rest of the lesson (all twelve minutes by that time). I asked if I was the first person to do that and was reassured that I wasn't (whew, right?) I had to leave the deck area and went with another mom to get something to drink and clear my head.

When I went back in to get the two swimmers, I noticed Holland sitting on the concrete bench. I thought maybe he was sick (remember super-hero three days ago??). Not sick. Just refused to listen. Kept popping under water every time the instructor was talking. It was so frustrating to have them both behave that way. Kinda wish I could have thrown Holland into the pool as well.