Exercise Tuesday!

Look at Sweetie go, with no assistance!!!!

Sweetie's on a mission now! Tonight she was giving it her all and really made a lot of progress. I think it helped that Honey was in absolute misery about a variety of things. There seems to be a direct corrolation between how unhappy one girl is and how hard Sweetie bends over backwards to be extra sweet, kind, helpful and well behaved. She sure knows when she has an opportunity to shine and stand out and she milks the heck out of it.

I think Honey must still not be feeling that well, or was overtired, or had been invaded by a horde of really angry aliens. She started off with the two wheeler and the other two were on scooters. After a few minutes Honey decides the bike is TERRIBLE. She CAN'T do it and turns the whiny waterworks on full blast. No problem, Lovey wants a turn on the two wheeler and is willing to trade the scooter with her. Sweetie is scooting along, happily minding her own business and all's well with the world for about 30 seconds. This is how long it takes for Honey to dissolve into another breakdown over the scooter. I forget what she had against it exactly.... but she leaves it on the side of the road and walks with Murray for awhile. Somehow the scooter comes up and she cries that she DOES want to use it. Sweetie promptly hops off of hers, tells Honey to go ahead with it and she'll run back and get the other one. She's only pouring it on a little at this point, but she's being good, kind and helpful. Who wants to mess with that?????

Eventually Honey gives up on the scooter again and I continue on pushing Lovey on the two wheeler for awhile. Then Sweetie wants a turn so Lovey trades off with her and walks along.

By the way, we went on this mission because Honey drew a fairy picture that she wanted to send in for a contest and we headed to the mailbox so SHE could mail off HER entry. The whininess continued and we offered several times to take her home but she refused. She wanted to mail the letter so she sucked it up for awhile.

Meanwhile Sweetie was really getting into her role as "the perfect child" and commented frequently about what a great time she was having and how she enjoyed working and practicing and getting all that exercise. She wanted to know if we could go out every Tuesday night and have "Exercise Tuessday". Besides chasing after the bike, I was mostly just exercising my patience and abilities to block out unpleasant sounding children. Not sure I want to make THAT a regular activity!!!!!!!

Sweetie made a lot of progress on the bike and got many long stretches of riding by herself. After half an hour she was tired and having a harder and harder time keeping the handlebars straight. She was very excited about getting so far on her own! By that point Lovey was ready for another crack at it so it worked out well. Except.... Lovey hasn't really figured out the balancing thing very well yet and keeping her upright requires more effort! Sometimes she gets herself centred but it's fleeting and will take a little more practice. Even with the bike buddy handle, the constant tipping was starting to bother my back so I switched off with Murray who was probably ready for a break from Honey's latest problem.

We mailed the contest entry and shortly afterwards she decided she wanted it back. She'd never draw another fairy that well again! It never occurred to me that she'd want to keep her picture and I'm pretty sure they don't mail back all the non winning entries. That kept her crying all the way home. I had to leave her behind because I couldn't talk about it anymore and Murphy & I walked in front of her the rest of the way (but not too far ahead Grammie, don't worry!)

Lovey had more spills than anyone tonight but never quit. She worked on that two wheeler almost the full length of the road home and probably never coasted/pedalled more than 2 feet before crashing mittened-hands first onto the pavement. I thought she'd be discouraged or frustrated so I told her how impressed I was that she'd worked so hard and she looked at me in surprise "It was so much fun Mumma!"

Needless to say someone had an early bedtime but had another whiny fit about that! She got to stay for all the Harry Potter though so she was lucky! We read a mermaid story with the other two after we tucked her in kicking and screaming. She hopped out of bed after we left and screamed and pounded on the door the entire time though and won herself a 2nd night going to bed early. That news didn't go over well but she seemed to catch on in a hurry!

Exercise Tuesday got off to a shaky start and we'll probably never get Murray to come again. (He expected it to be awful and Honey fulfilled the prophecy!) BUT 3/5 had a great time and enjoyed it! The problem is, you don't always know which kid is going to be rotten so any outing is a bit of a crapshoot. I don't like to just leave everybody home on the assumption that it's going to be awful. NO! drag them out in all their miserably glory and hope for the best, that's all any good mum can do!!! :)))

(just think of the memories dear, this will be a funny story later! really!! well, ok yeah, much later but still!)