Fair play

This past week has been a(nother) roller coaster. We've weathered battles over eating dinner, discovered Tyla's love of "going visiting", celebrated her "bonus" birthday with family and friends, and spent countless hours colouring (Tinkerbell is my new speciality), blowing bubbles, and drawing with sidewalk chalk.

The highlight of the week? Tyla's introduction to "The Cars Game" on PlayStation. To set the stage, Tyla's got a strong competitive spirit (to put it lightly), can't quite read, and is pretty convinced she knows a lot about most things. I have always been thoroughly incompetent when it comes to gaming (back in the day, I sucked at Super Mario and would only play Duck Hunt -those of you who are from the Nintendo 64 era will understand what this means), and really, really hate it when I'm not good at something. In fact, being inadequate or unskilled just makes me want to quit or cry. This week, while playing video games with my 6-year-old daughter, I did both.

I have lofty goals of teaching Tyla about sportsmanship, fair play, and trying your best. I hope she will understand that it's not always about winning, excelling, or only doing things you're good at - there's joy and value to be found in stepping outside your comfort zone. However, evidently this utopian vision only applies when I'm not being mocked by a sassy child who loves to taunt me with repeated choruses of, "na na na na na na, I just beat you!". I threw down my controller and gave up... then spent the better part of the week feeling guilty for being such an awful role model and trying to wrap my head around the realization that, in this department, I haven't changed much since I was Tyla's age.

What did I do with this newly gained insight? I decided to bake Tyla's Tinkerbell birthday cake myself - knowing full well that my baking skills were hit and miss and my finishing work was far from perfect. I cobbled together a cake that was a loose interpretation the picture-perfect cake we'd seen at the grocery store, and held my breath when Tyla saw it for the first time. In the pit of my stomach, I feared she'd hate it. I worried that she'd point out all of the ways it didn't look like the grocery store cake. I feared this would be yet another facet of parenting that I was woefully inadequate at (because mastering PlayStation games is an essential parenting skill, you know).

When the cake was revealed to her, Tyla didn't critique it. She didn't gush with excitement, either (that's not really her style). She looked at it, nodded, and said, "It's nice. I like it. I want a piece with green icing."