Minimizing the Expectation Gap

The first time I threw a dart it was 15 years ago, at a dart board I had bought my husband (then boyfriend) for his birthday. It was a professional board made of bristles. We set up the board, measured the proper distance and I picked my dart. I threw it with a graceless movement of my arm, and the dart slowly wobbled on its way to the dart board in a straight line, not even elegant enough to make an arc. It landed right in the middle. Bull's-eye. The next fifteen thousand times I never even hit the board. Beginner's luck.

The other day we bought a potty. I had read somewhere that it is a good idea to leave a potty around to play with, so that the child becomes familiar with the object and will one day go in it. I am in no rush. Anise is 16 months old, and there is plenty of time to work on potty training, plus it would be easier in warmer weather. I showed Anise her new toy, she was very excited. I told if she wanted to, she could poo in the potty. She had also made a huge mess eating dinner, so I removed her clothes, and while I was at it removed her diaper too. I realized we never let her roam naked (because it always feels cold) and that might be something she would like to do. She played with her potty, and then pooed in her potty. I am trying to be careful not to push her to go again. Knowing me I will ruin the whole thing by pushing too hard, so I am going to forget about it, even though it is tempting to leave her naked all day and do only that!

I don't believe in beginner's luck. I think it is something else. Perhaps maybe having no expectations frees the mind. Or maybe it is something more, something deeper than that. Impulses from beyond. A couple of times we have had enormous sleep success after giving Anise a homeopathic remedy for sleep, but it would only last once. One night, or one nap, or one day. It has happened too often to be a coincidence. Not often enough to really think the homeopathy worked. Plus that would be the opposite - after giving a remedy I have expectations!

You know how they say practice makes perfect? Well for most of my life it has been the opposite. The more I try or "do" the worse things got. I know it is the same for Anise's nap. I learned to undo with flute, can I undo my anxiety?

I used to take gymnastics as a kid, and I could always do it the first time, then never again. Maybe it is thinking too hard, trying too hard, wanting too much. It was even like that for concepts for me. I would understand the physics equation the first time it was explained to us, then the more the teacher explained, the more I would lose it. I understood everything in school so quickly, but as the teacher went on my brain said "if this requires this much explanation then I must have misunderstood - it must be much harder and more complicated than I originally thought". So I would disconnect.

Like potty training.