"Can't is NOT in Your Vocabularly Young Lady"

Oh hi! It's me again, Military Wife and Dis' Able Mom. I'm sure you're all wondering why I named this particular post "Can't is NOT in Your Vocabulary Young Lady," so I'll get right down to the nitty gritty and fill you in on my day with my oh so stubborn 4 year old. Okay, so maybe you're not ALL wondering, but I'll tell you anyway.

Yes, this mom may have a disability, but today it had nothing to do with my Spina Bifida and everything to do with my lack of patience with a VERY stubborn little girl, we'll call her Caylee. So anyway, on with the story.

Today started out like every other morning in my house, you know telling Caylee to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, find her book bag, etc. All while I'm dragging her out of bed, dressing her, fixing her breakfast, finding her book bag and getting myself ready to boot. The other moms at preschool have to think that I'm some sort of ogre that just rolls out of bed, drops my daughter off and then returns to my cold, dark cave until time to pick her up again. You see, my lovely daughter is not so much a morning person, and well lets face facts...neither am I. I do shower and get dressed before running out the door to take her to school. In fact, most days we're actually early. Just not today!

Each morning when I drop my lovely daughter off, she is supposed to get her name sheet and write her name on the appropriate line according to the day of the week. If any of my fellow preschool moms are reading this, you all know the drill and maybe even my pain. You see, my very capable, yet very stubborn little girl sits down to write her name, which we have all established that she can do by herself, and proceeds to cover the page with a very large "C." Then it all went downhill. Usually, after she does this she'll at least attempt to write the rest of her name with a little prodding from me. Well ... not today. Today she looked straight at me and shrieked / whined in a very loud boisterous voice...."MOMMY, I JUST CAN'T DO IT!!!"

Pause...rewind....

Oh yes, she said "I CAN'T" in my presence. That is one thing that I do not allow her to say in my house unless it is followed up with "right now or until I get bigger." You see, the phrase "I CAN'T" puts limitations on us and we have enough of those without putting even more limitations on ourselves, even if they are just psychological limitations.

Fast forward ...

I proceeded to tell her that if she didn't think that she could write her name today, that was okay and that we would try again tomorrow. Afterall, if she wasn't going to do it right then we wouldn't do it at all today. She quickly changed her mind once she looked around the room and realized that all of her school friends were writing their names. So she opened her marker and tried again. When she did the same thing, I simply took the marker out of her hand and attempted to put the cap back on it. That is until Caylee got a little pep in her step and grabbed the marker holding the open tip in her hand getting brown marker all over her hand. When I pointed this out to her, she quickly remedied the situation by wiping it all the way down her pink sweater. Clearly, she was testing my patience today.

It is days like this that make me stop and reflect on the things that I'm teaching my daughter and the things that she's teaching me each and every day. I'll be honest, I was fuming at this point and ready to blow a gasket, but instead I took the advice of another wise preschool mommy when she said, "breathe, Courtney breathe."

When I got to my car and reflected on the things that transpired this morning, I started to think about how I could learn from this situation. You know, after I called my husband and my mom and proceeded to tell them what she had done, rather loudly. I decided that it wasn't worth getting so upset over. I also learned that when Caylee says, "I can't," I can always use that as a building block to teach her that we are only unable to do the things that our mind tells us we can't. We tend to build our own roadblocks along the way to self-discovery.

My final lesson for today was to write down all the "road blocks" that I have set for myself over the past few years. Then, I wrote down how I was going to break through those road blocks. Case in point, this blog. I set a "road block" up 5 years ago when I told myself that I was never going to be able to work as a writer as long as we moved every 2-years (or more often than that sometimes). By starting this blog, I'm working at breaking through this "road block." I may not get paid to write this, but maybe I will someday. Consider this a lesson learned. :)

In closing, consider what "road blocks" you have subconsciously set for yourself. Then decide how you're going to break through them. Until next time. :)