As you can imagine, I’ve read about this subject as much as any parent, looked into different approaches, etc, you name it.  But not until now I got myself into a situation where things got out of hand. I came to realize that I ‘m probably fucking it all up as we speak ANYWAY!!.  This morning was the first RED LIGHT. I’m taking Daniel to daycare, normally it takes me 20 min to get him dressed because we have this game going on, that he likes for me to run after him, and when I catch him he lets me put on a garment.  This game was harmless and fun, I thought, until this routine kept taking longer and longer.   Plus the fact that in this f…. country you need to put three layers of clothing on him to keep him warm outside (sorry, I’m a bit frustrated this morning).  So this is what happened today: Keep in mind that I’m also trying to respect his will and  his choices.  And I’m also trying to give him responsibilityand  thinking of his self-esteem. Also keep in mind that he’s supposed to go to daycare at 9:00am, I normally make it by 9:15.

8am I try to change his diaper first thing, he says "no", so I wait….let him run around

8:10am he poops, I ask him if I can change his diaper now?  (I’m thinking,  uuuuh what a  smart kid he was trying to tell me that he wants to pooh before  I change him.) His answer is still "NO", ok, maybe he’s not done

8:20am He must be done now… Can I change your diaper now? No, OK, then I really need to change your diaper now.  So I try to calmly explain to him that it’s getting late and it’s time to get dressed for daycare. But he still refuses to let me change his diaper, he arches his back on the floor and starts kicking and screaming. So I pick him up anyway and put him on the changing table HE BITES ME SO F.. HARD, that I’m about to cry.  I get really upset and put him firmly on the table, he starts grabbing whatever he has near and throws it at me.  I clean him up and he keeps kicking, I calm him down, and even make him laugh….and ask if he lets me put a diaper on. He says no, so I let him down, and I get ready myself.

8:30 am He’s still running around  the apartment without a diaper, I go again with the "talking" approach. "We need to get ready honey", bla bla bla.  He keeps playing. I’m thinking to myself, am I such a f…. wimp that I can’t even get my 20 month old to get dressed??? I’m trying not to loose it with him, Hakan said I shouldn’t scream at him. (easy to say when you see him just 1.5 hours a day). 

8:40 I decide that since it’s too late, I will dress him myself while he’s playing, so there I am running after him with a shirt in my hand getting it thru his head, then while he’s distracted with some blocks I put on his diaper and pants.  Now I just need a sweater, which he refuses.  I’m also letting him choose his clothes, since I read it was good for them too.  The next sweater I just put on, I don’t even ask him anymore.

8:50 Now he wants something to eat before we leave.  (Yes, it’s already too fu….. late anyway, so I give him some fruit and bread) Now it’s time for the outer layer of his clothes. 

9:05 He obviously doesn’t want to put the SKI OUTFIT ON. By this time, I already lost it.  So I’m raising my voice telling him that now it’s too late and we need to go.  He’s not so amused but at least it’s not the tantrum that I got earlier.  First the pants, then the jacket, gloves, hat, boots… etc, he’s now cooperating better.  Now it’s not funny anymore, but even when he cooperates it’s hard to put everything on.

9:15 We finally leave the house, I put him in the carriage and we arrive at Daycare at 9:25am.

The head of department, looks at me and says: "Again, overslept????" So at this time, I loose my pride  and I tell her what happened.  He had never bit me like this before, it was a very hard bite on my breast, plus he was kicking and swinging very hard with his arms.  I told her how I wasand about the things I was thinking. I don’t want to hit him or scream at him really loud. And I’ve tried talking and letting him do his will, and leaving some choices to him so that he feels included and not like everything is forced upon him.  I don’t want him to feel like in prison and that’s why it’s true that sometimes I let him do what he wants. But sometimes I just can’t.    

The girl at daycare looked at me and said:  "It’s so good that you tell us these things, most parents don’t say anything"  Well, she started saying that he doesn’t do this at school (which was a relief), and then she pointed out some mistakes I’ve been making (which were obvious, but sometimes hard to realize in the middle of things). Here is in a summary what she said and 95% of it you can find it in any book, but I dare you to do it, even when you have read it 1000 times (as I have):

Rule #1: Be firm and change the tone of your voice when reprimanding. Explain that such behavior is not acceptable.

Rule #2: Look at him in the eye, to make sure he’s listening.

Rule #3: Lower yourself to his height, speak to him at his level.

Rule #4: BE CONSISTENT!!!!!!!! my biggest mistake… I’ve been sending mixed messages, sometimes it’s ok to run around and play, and sometimes it isn’t.  I would have thought that was understood by both of us, since it had been working out perfect for the longest time, but now…. it just changed.  And now I know why???, He is just testing his boundaries, and this is one of them.

 Its so hard for me to accept that I’m wrong, I don’t know if I was just very sensitive, but as I was walking back home I was crying, I knew I had put myself in this position and I just thought of Daniel in 5 years. What if at this time he slaps me in the face in the middle of the grocery store because I wouldn’t get him some cookies.  I would certainly slap him back…. But this is exactly the kind of behavior that I always thought was typical of a BAD MOTHER!!! I always thought that when I decided to be a mother I would be a good one.  But now I don’t know if by trying too hard I’m fucking up ANYWAY. 

So I wrote in Spanish the summary of this weekend’s match.  But this funny incident will be in English!!! I went on the court and Håkan and Daniel were watching my match.  As I came out, everyone was congratulating me, I could bearly walk, my whole body was non-functional.  But I was still in the clouds about the fact that I had just beaten a 14 year old girl.  And a pretty decent girl too, one who ran a lot and was pretty smart on the court. But the best was yet to come.

Håkan said, hey! I got something for you…. I said "ok". He said he was talking to the mother of the girl I played, and the conversation went something like this….

(the mother) So, who are you here with???? 

(Håkan) With Sandra, the one on the second court.

(the mother) Oh, so you’re here with your daughter,

(Håkan) uuuhhhh nope, she’s my wife.

Håkan was definately not so happy with the comment, since he thought it made him look like and old man.  But I was thrilled!!! I LOOK LIKE A TEENAGER, I LOOK LIKE A TEENAGER!!!, even though I was feeling like a grandma!!!jajaja  All of a sudden the pain in my toe nails and my back all stiffened up disappeared. The only thing left was the pain in my calve, it was almost cramping, but not yet.

It’s a shame that as a team in the end we lost the match, and we didn’t go up a division.  This was an important match since it decided who went up a division.  We play three singles and one doubles, I won my singles (7-6,7-5 after 2 hours) and we lost the other three points.  I played the doubles too, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to move in the doubles, I did my best and my partner did too.  But the truth is that we were both out of energy.  We had fun, but since we were all quite competitive we were not all that happy when we lost.  We went to my house, drank some wine and ate some PIZZA!!! WEll, it wasn’t that bad, is not like we were suffering too much!!!

Esto de jugar tennis es como una droga, una vez que empiezas no puedes parar. No les había contado pero oficialmente he regresado a las canchas de tennis, a disfrutar de este juego tan divertido.   He empezado a jugar por lo menos dos veces a la semana. Y cada que me meto a jugar doy todo lo que tengo en el día.   Así soy para todo, si voy a hacer algo, pongo mi corazón en la tarea.  Claro que regresar al tennis es un poco más difícil para mí porque siempre quiero jugar cerca de como lo hice en mis tiempos y es un hecho que no estoy en forma física como para volver a entrenar diario, etc…..

En fin, estoy jugando con un grupo de chicas, todas veteranas, pero que en sus tiempos jugaron mucho tennis.  Talvez yo he jugado un poco mas que ellas, pero para el caso es lo mismo.  Despues de 8 años de no tocar una raqueta, creo que no importa mucho.  El caso es divertirse, o eso es lo que me digo cada vez que me enojo por no meter una bola donde la quería……  Este fin de semana jugamos para subir de división.  Resulta que estamos en 3a división y se me hace increíble porque yo creo que jugamos bien. LLevábamos todos los partidos ganados y este era el decisivo.  Las contrincantes sacaron a sus mejores jugadoras, un par de chicas Juniors de 14 y 15 años, las dos están dentro de las 10 mejores en Suecia.  Una de ellas es clásica Sueca, alta, delgada, rubia,  ojo azul, como una muñequita, y muy simpática. (cualquiera de mis amigos mexicanos, hubieran dado una pierna por conocerla jajaja). La otra chica, es de papá chileno y tambien es muy linda.  La tercera es una chica que jugó profesional y estuvo entre las 200 del mundo, (osea juega bien, pero no creo que nada del otro mundo, pues eso fue hace un buen rato). 

Yo no tengo puntos en Suecia, pero algunos por un partido que jugué, y me tocó jugar de número dos.   La chica con la que jugué tenía 14 años.  Yo pensé que sería fácil ganarle con un poco de colmillo, pero la chica jugaba muy inteligentemente. No cometió errores tontos, y trabajaba el punto muy bien.  Yo recuerdo que a su edad yo iba por mas winners, cometía muchos más errores.  Pues el primer set nos fuimos a muerte súbita, gané 7-6 (7-3), 7-5.  Tenía tanto tiempo de jugar una muerte que cuando iba 6-2, no estaba segura si se contaba hasta 6 o hasta 7…. un poco avergonzada… ni pregunté, seguí jugando, lo bueno es que la chica estaba muy al pendiente del score y capté que era a 7.

 Corrí como hace años que no corró en una cancha.  Y cada vez que pensaba que ya había ganado el punto, me regresaba la pelota, esta chica parecía pared!!!!! y mis piernas poco a poco se iban debilitando.  Claro que yo no enseñaba nada, pero en el segundo set mi pantorrilla se empezó a hacer nudos, mi espalda me pedía a gritos que ya parara.  Pero mi orgullo no me permitía dejar de correr por una bola.  Corría como loquita por toda la cancha, hasta por las dejaditas!!!!! En algún momento me enojé tanto que me pegué en la pierna con la mano, fue como si tuviera 16 años otra vez, me empezó a sangrar la pierna….. (un poco salvaje, lo sé) pero se sintió muy bien, que de repente me importará tanto no perder un punto.

Lo peor es que me molestaba no poder meter esa pelota que normalmente sería una pelota fácil…… Aaaaaa SI (se me olvidaba), ES POR ESO POR LO QUE ME HABIA RETIRADO DEL TENNIS…… porque había olvidado disfrutar del juego sin que me molestara el que no pudiera pegar los tiros que en algún día metía con los ojos cerrados.   Pero durante el partido, despues de estar sufriendo tanto, también me acordé de lo divertido que es dar todo lo que uno tiene, por correr tras de una pelotita y disfrutar del juego.  Sabía que si el partido se iba a 3 sets, no tendría ningún chance, estaba 5-3 abajo en el segundo set, y me hacía falta un cuerpo nuevo.  La chica no dejaba de brincar en las puntas de sus pies y yo solo quería llorar cada que la veía.  Claro esta que por fuera tambíen estaba brincando, aunque cada brinco me doliera hasta el alma, las uñas de mis pies parecía como si me las estuvieran arrancando una por una.  Cada que se volteaba la chica estiraba mi pantorrilla que estaba a punto de acalambrarse.  Le hice señas al guero…. Una Camilla POR FAVOR!!!! o aunque sea un plátano.  Me consedió lo segundo, y eso tuvo que ser suficiente. 

Para mí el jugar un partido difícil de singles fue mentalmente difícil, concentrarme en el partido no fue lo más fácil, pero físicamente fue una tortura!!!! Lo bueno es que terminó en un triunfo, y pude salir de la cancha con una gran sonrisa en la cara. Lástima que mi equipo perdió en total… pero ni modo… asi es esto, no siempre se gana.