Mt. Everest

When we last left the Trusty Family the husband was in Central America, the child was crying and the mother was wishing she hadn’t cut back on drinking.  Well… the husband came home, the child was still crying and the mother was still wishing for that bottle of wine.

Let me back up.

Last Wednesday we had our marathon in the car just to get to hockey day.  It ended on an ok note.  It wasn’t spectacular, but I channeled my inner awesome mom and we made an agreement to try again on Sunday.  Sunday rolled around and we made the drive up to the rink (I should mention that the new rink is 45 minutes away and across a toll bridge).  We had a little extra time which really ended up being extra time for the child to get worked up.  He got dressed, we waited and then went out by the ice.  When the coached opened the door the child didn’t want to go.  I did everything I could to convince the child to go.  I talked with the coach and explained the situation.  He really wasn’t much help which made me rather irritated, but I understood.  Long story short I drove 45 minutes to watch my child stand outside of a hockey rink and quit.  He didn’t step onto the ice.  We went back to the locker room, dressed into street clothes and went home (back over the toll bridge).  We walked in the door at home and somehow the conversation about quitting came up and the boy yelled at me and said, “I didn’t quit.  Why would I quit hockey?  Why would I quit the one thing in the world that I love so much?”  GAH! WHA?! *blam*

I called the husband (who was still in Central America) and told him the story.  His response…”what am I supposed to do from 3000 miles away.”  Not what I wanted to hear my friend.

As a family we made an agreement that the boy would give it one more shot when Dad got home.  Now for those of you who are reading this and thinking geez she sure is adamant about this hockey thing and should get over herself need to realize that my son is quite a gifted hockey player.  We’ve invested 3 years in this so far and for the past 3 years he’s loved the sport.  This all stems from the fact that we’ve changed rinks and the child. hates. change.

Yesterday was hockey day.  We have to leave our house by 5:15 to make it to practice on time.  The boy gets off the bus at 2:40 and that gave us just enough time to have a snack and figure out his Halloween/birthday party costume situation*.  The child had his snack and we had a discussion about the costume.  Eventually he came around to wanting to be a dog.  Fantastic.  That meant I had to sew that costume.  I had would have that afternoon, Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning to finish the costume.  I could do it, but we had to go right then to get the pattern and fabric.  Apparently that was the end of the world.  From that point forward the child became irrational.

He didn’t want to go to the fabric store because I was ruining his fun and he wouldn’t get time to play outside.  He wanted to play hockey, but just not today.  I called the husband to try to diffuse the situation.  It was at the point that nothing I said would fix it.  The child became more irrational.  His father told him to get in the car and go to the fabric store.  Oleg said he couldn’t take the phone in the car (he was using the home phone).  Finally I took the phone and told the husband to please come home.  He did.  I love him so.

Costume situation resolved, we grabbed some dinner and headed toward the rink.  As we pulled into town the boy started to complain that his stomach hurt.  He started to complain that he didn’t want to play hockey because his stomach hurt.  He was doing everything in his power to piss me off so I would say lets turn the car around and you can quit.  I don’t quit.  I knew exactly what he was doing and I wasn’t going to let him quit.  He made a commitment to us that he would give it another try and he was going to follow through.  We spent a long while sitting in the car calming him down and getting him inside the rink.  I sent the husband down to the locker room to dress him while I sat in the warm part of the rink until he was on the ice.

Kids started coming out, coaches started coming out… no Oleg.  30 minutes went by and no Oleg.  It wasn’t looking promising.  Then I looked up and there, on the ice, with a coach was my child.  He didn’t look happy about it, but there he was.  Two of the coaches took mercy on my child and talked him into going out.  One coach took him on a tour of the stations and introduced him to other players.  He made it all the way around and came back to the door in tears.  “My head hurts!”  Lying.  We convinced him to go back out and show us how to do one of the stations and then we’d take his helmet off.  He did and we loosened his helmet to what I felt were unsafe levels, but coach said it was fine.  Coach helped in back out and stayed with him for 2 stations.  Once he felt comfortable coach left and Oleg followed the crowd from station to station.  He’d visually check in with us and smile and give us a thumbs up.  At one point he had to go potty and as he was getting back on the ice he looked at me and said, “mom! I’m getting used to it.”

The child stayed on the ice for a whole 50 minutes.  He participated, listened, did his best.  In the end he had fun.  When practice was over he looked at me and said, “I DID IT!”  He was so proud of himself.  As Derek and I watched our child doing his best to get over his fears we talked about the program and that we felt this was good for him.  The coaches did a magnificent job at helping him.  The program is well run.  We were happy with our decision.

Back in the car I had to tell Oleg that he wouldn’t have practice on Sunday because of his birthday party.  He was genuinely sad about that.  Sometimes it is like climbing Mt. Everest with this child.  Anything is possible with him, but sometimes it takes hard work to make it happen.

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*the child decided to have a costume party for his birthday and had yet to pick out what he wanted to be.  The party is on Sunday and I work Thursdays-Saturdays.