Try, Try Again

Aim high. Do your best. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I know them all, and I've tried to always aim high, do my best, and try, try again. Being a short term stay at home mom, I'm learning the most important thing is to try, try again.

We haven't succeeded at potty training. I've done my best. He has aimed high. And low.  But, we'll try, try again until we have success. I know without a doubt that RJ will not go to the first grade while still asking for a Huggie. "Mommy?" he asks every so politely every single day, "I needa Huggie to poop." I've tried rewards. He points out every toy he sees and says, "Oh! I gonna get that when I poop!" (My bank account isn't worried given his fondness of Huggies.). I've tried scientific reasoning, which, not surprisingly, doesn't work so well with a three year old. He doesn't really understand nutrition ("Candy gonna make me strong!"), so explaining why he doesn't need certain nutrients is probably futile. I've appealed to his moral conscience. I tell him to do what he believes is the right thing to do. Apparently, the right thing to do is to ask permission rather than beg forgiveness.

We have bad days. Really bad ones. I yell. He screams. We go to bed angry, and sometimes I think he hates me. He tells me I have bad breath. He tells me he doesn't like my pony tail. I, in turn, tell him I don't like his attitude, and away we go to timeout. (In his defense, I had eaten salsa that day for lunch).

But, there's nothing like a three year old to remind you how to really try, try again.  We went to the park last week. And, he saw an airplane. He has seen thousands of airplanes. He has flown on planes. He eats breakfast once a month at the fly-in breakfast. He is a valuable customer of Enrique's at the airport. Airplanes shouldn't be exciting anymore. But they are. "Look!" he screamed, "An airplane!" "It's soooo high!" "I gonna catch it!" And he began to jump. And jump and reach and stretch. And with each jump, he tried again to catch that airplane. By the time he was finished, I believed he could catch it too.

He tried, and he tried again. He didn't catch that airplane, but he did remind his mommy that little things can be exciting. Bad days can come (and they do), but if we try, try again, we can find that RJ/mommy magic. Little moments. Big ambitions. And we will try, try again.