Back to the Drawing Board my Sweet Boy

Cara was building a lego/bath toy tower when it suddenly toppled down. "Oh well, back to the drawing board," she sighed. I love listening to my kids developing language. When Cara talks I can hear phrases she got from Eli, Kelly, me and Joel. "A litle help here," is her favorite way to ask for assistance. She got that from Joel, but where he picked it up I don't know.

"Mommy, how can I save the world if I don't have a cape?" Also from Cara. If only it were that simple.

We went to Joel's hip hop recital today. He did really well especially considering he's totally uncoordinated and he's never had a dance class before, but he held his own. He was really nervous about it.

Last week when I told him it was time to go to class he started crying. Not unusual as transitions are difficult for Joel and if his mind is in the middle of something he has a really hard time accepting the change in routine. Usually he calms down in less than a minute or two and psyches himself up for the next activity by bucking up and resolutely saying, "I'll do it!"

But last week he kept crying and crying. I kept encouraging him to tell me what was wrong, but he couldn't. So I asked questions, "Are the kids mean?" "Is the teacher mean?". He shook his head no, but was still too upset to be able to verbalize and vocalize his feelings. Finally I asked if he could write his feelings down for me. I thought he would say no because he hates writing, but instead he proceeded to write me a note. That he readily accepted the writing "assignment" told me that he was feeling something deeply that he really wanted me to understand.

"Even though you try to make a healthy body for me and the kids understand, I still wanna take a break from hip hop. I'm not enjoying it. It's TOO much for me."

I felt really bad after reading it. I know I need to push Joel (or he'd never get off the couch), but was I pushing him too hard? I felt especially bad that he'd said he wasn't enjoying it. I told him we could definitely skip hop hop that day, and he let out a big sigh of relief and said through tears, "Thanks for understanding me mom." Ooooh, little pang to the heart, what a precious boy. I did ask him after he'd calmed down if he thought he could go next week (today) for the final performance, and he gulped and said yes.

So we went today. Joel was teary again, but he'd resolved to do it, so he was gonna. After all was said and done and I could tell Joel was proud of himself, I realized he wasn't enjoying the class because he was so stressed that he wasn't doing the dance perfectly. I know Joel has anxiety, but I don't always realize how much stress he feels in certain circumstances. I bolded and capitalized the word "too" from Joel's note because that's how he wrote it. While writing it he was gritting his teeth and bearing down on the pen as hard as he could.

While I do feel back that so felt so much stress. I'm glad he finished it out and came through feeling that it wasn't so bad afterall and that he'd licked it!