The Two Faces of Stitch

It's Stitch's Spring Break this week. He's been lounging at home, trainspotting with Dad, and went to work with Dad today. I got a call towards the end of the day with a status report. Dad told me he did fine, that he was with The Sitter and about to head to class.

"He says he hates lessons," said Dad.
"I know."
"He told everyone he likes skating, just not lessons."
I rubbed my head. "Yeah. I know."
"They asked him if he would remember them if he went to the Olympics."
"What did he say?"
"He didn't really say. But then they asked him if he would let me hang his medal in the booth."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. He said 'If I'm not going to give him my stupid second place trophy, I'm definitely not giving him my gold medal.'"
"He didn't."
"Something like that. I like how he just assumed gold."
"Uh huh."

The Stupid Second Place Trophy. According to Stitch, this trophy is stupid because it doesn't have his name on it. At both of the other comps, there were engravers on hand. Not the Bad Mojo Comp. So Bad Mojo Comp gypped him on the Boy's Goody Bags (a bag of pretzels and a bottle of water), gave him the apparent horror of second place, and to add insult to injury, they did not give me the chance to have his name engraved on the trophy. This Trophy is now forever known as The Stupid Second Place Trophy.

While Stitch claims to hate lessons, he will use elements, moves and bits he picks up from his time in Group Lessons and with Coach. After a few dozen times running into little kids and having Coach fuss, he is finally starting to look over his shoulder on back crossovers. Gordon and Stitch have turned Shoot the Duck into Who Can Fall Down the Most, yet he tries them much more than he used to. They are no longer his "Arch Enemy." (Direct Quote.)

Dad says he spent the day, whining and moaning that "Mom is wasting all my spring break" with my insistence he do math drills, read a book every day, and continue skating. He says Stitch claimed to hate Wednesday the most. I fully expected to pick up a whiny, tired and nearly intolerable child this evening.

Nope. Stitch was gleefully skating, was upset only a bit at the "surprise" evaluation (I forgot to tell him), and was laughing and playing with Gordon after it was done. He did really well, a lot of 5's and a few 4's. I told him he did good, while another mom was talking Salchows and Axels, how the Coaches flunk all the kids on purpose during mid-session evaluations,  and something else about "getting all the rotations in." Ms V was asking me to translate the scores into school marks of A, B, C and so on. I said that 10 was A+, 5 was a C (passable average) and take it from there. Was this right? Probably not, but maybe she'll learn not to ask me this stuff. As it was, she began fretting because there were "D's" on his "report card."

Stitch was talkative, joking, happy and playful on the way home. This didn't seem like the same kid who was complaining loudly about being "forced" to do lessons earlier. This was the kid who was saying he would tell Coach that I was forbidding him to learn Death Drops. "I'll just have to tell Coach to teach me!" he was laughing at me. This was the kid who said, "I'll just have to learn how," after watching Plushenko do some weird backwards skip thing on the Youtubes. (And he tried that night, nearly succeeding.)

I believe this is part of Pushy Parenting. Any other adult in hearing range would hear Stitch complain and probably think I should pull him from skating. Yet I see him skate, and I know why he's complaining. He's complaining because it's hard. I just remind him that what was once hard is now easy, and the things that are hard now will eventually become easy if he continues to practice. Push him through the rough spots, the hard places, and watch him forget about the trouble when it becomes easy.

For now, Stitch and I are looking forward to TWO WHOLE DAYS of sleeping in, as Coach is out of town. Spring Break, indeed!