The Way, Way Back

*Disclaimer* As a foolhardy attempt to clean up my act I have decided to go back through my blog and try to post some of the many drafts I have started writing and never finished. The best way to break a bad habit of procrastination is to kick it in the crouch and make it your bitch. Also *Grandma I am sorry I swear so much in my blogs but I can only work on one character flaw at a time.." So Procrastination, prepare to die. As you will see, the timeline is going to be very off. Such as, in this post I talk about my four year old niece, Ellie is now 6. #timewarp. I'll even change the font color of the old post so you don't break your brain.


I had an interesting conversation with my niece Ellie, age 4, while driving her to gymnastics class. I was telling her that while she was in class, she should try to really focus when she was practicing. Not to get too excited when it was her turn to do the different moves because you could get hurt or more importantly, mess up. Yes, I am one of those overly involved freaks you see on TLC shows and yes I do plan on living vicariously through my niece. So I am explaining to her what it means to focus, we practice focusing on my finger, practice focusing on the car ahead of us, we are just a couple-a focusing fools, I tell ya. So we are focusing on this van ahead of us at the stoplight, looking at all the details on it, the color, the license plate, the make and model, doing great when all of a sudden Ellie looks at me with squinty eyes and slowly tells me "I've never ridden in a tractor before."
I look back at her, dumbfounded because I was so focused on the van ahead of us and ask her "What?" and she replies "A tractor. I've never ridden in one. OH LOOK! A PLANE!"
So I added "teaching a 4 year old how to focus" to the list of Impossible Tasks, right under "clean entire house" and right above "get father's approval" *collective AWWWWWWWWW* haha just kidding (no I'm not). But teaching a 4 year old to focus is a tough job, actually the whole parenting thing in general seems like a pretty impossible thing to do.
Either it's because I don't have a little child of my own, or maybe because I really do feel like I need my father's approval, (it's that one) that when it comes to little kids, it takes a lot to impress me. I don't know if that makes sense, just bear with me, ok so what I mean is I am just sometimes too critical, of little kids, I'm a kid critic. It sounds like I'm a huge jerk but I'm not..well maybe a little. Like I really enjoy watching and helping Ellie do her gymnastics, I've very proud of how well she does. But I am also very strict with her and unless she does something really well or close to, I don't think she needs any praise. As I type this I am trying to think of other examples and I am starting to realize that it's only her. I am only that way with little Ellie. All the other little kids in my family, my friends' kids, nope I'm not hyper-critical of any of them, everything they do is cool. It's poor Ellie who gets the brunt of the madness. 

 Looking back I realize I was a dick to Ellie and I'm happy to say I have changed since then. Mostly because she isn't in gymnastics anymore, but also because I realized that even if she isn't the next gold medal gymnast she is still amazing. The way her brain works, the things she says, her ability to kick ass playing Subway Surfer or that Minion game on her mom's phone. The fact that she loves Albert Einstein, she is obsessed with Morgan Freeman, even named her baby doll after him and refuses to swear even when I try really hard to trick her into it, because she "is too little to say bad words". Best of all, she loves me for no reason. If I lost my job, my house and smelled like cat urine, she would still love me. After all bullying I put her through and I am still her Auntie Rachel. Which is why I am convinced she is the best person in the world. Period.