Maybe They Can Learn From Each Other

The occasion: a friend's birthday party. The competition: musical chairs. Let the child personality analysis begin!

Lil' J got knocked out about half way through, and obediently sat out for the rest of the game, along with the other early departees. His mellow response in the face of rejection was in keeping with his "whatever, it's just a game" temperament. Live and let live. Peace, man. Have a great day. Z z z z z.

Alyssa, on the other hand, was NOT happy with coming in second. Second!! HMMPH!! "I HATE that game! I'm GLAD it's over!" Seething words, that luckily were spoken under her breath and only loud enough for me to hear, or she would have been sent away for the longest time-out in the history of all things child related.

There's an upside to the Diva dramatics - she's very achievement oriented, and barely bats an eyelash at working her butt off to attain mastery or success at something. The downside is that she's, uh, a little tightly wound.

Lil' Bro, on the other hand, will try something for awhile, and if it's too hard will make peace with the idea of NOT doing it, and move on to something else. "Mama, I'm all done wid dat." Z z z z z. He's super fun at parties though, and will never embarrass his mother. TERrific.

I've tried helping them both with varying degrees of no success. I'm not going to say I've thrown in the towel completely, but let's just say I have embraced a new strategy: hoping they can learn from each other!
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Raising My Type A Child

Sports day bike parade...

(First of all let me reiterate that Alyssa is 5 1/2, and in Kindergarten. She is the youngest in her class, but has more than enough attitude and spunk to compensate.)

So we're moving around the back field of the school in the bike parade. Picture bumpy grass, and a long hill. The older kids are not really having any problems, but many of the younger ones are having to get off their bikes and push.

ME: "Darlin', just get off and push, ok? We're going to be left behind."

A: "No Mommy I want to pedal! I can DO it!"

She's pedalling furiously as the back wheel of her bike spins without gaining any traction, because, of course, her training wheels are hung up on lumps of grass.

I grab her handle bars in an attempt to help her along, only to be vehemently chastised:

"MOMMY!!! I want to DO IT MYSELF!!"

She won't let me pull, she won't get off and push, and she's stuck in the grass. I can feel my blood boiling out my ears as my own Type A control freak tendencies are being grossly stressed. I finally resort to threats:

"Do you want to go home??!!"

(oh the joys. Isn't sports day a hoot.)

We eventually make it to the gym, where the bikes are stored during the events, but not without her teacher having to hunt us down because we were so late.

All was well in the end, and we didn't miss any of the events. We even ended the day on a good note, with minimal head butting between us.

One of these days I'll figure out how to handle her in a way that is not as confrontational. Meanwhile I just take it day by day...