We're having a moment

Our kids enjoy playing miniature golf. Andrew enjoys it the most but they each enjoy a good round of mini-golf. Our resort had an interesting course that we enjoyed playing during our stay. I say interesting because many of the “holes” had more than one hole. It was similar to a chose your own adventure book, only here you could chose your own hole. The other interesting part of the course was that the first seven holes played slightly down hill and the next nine or so played back up hill. Well the holes that were up hill were very difficult; with many shots that rolled up towards the hole initially but then rolled right back down the hill to where the shot began. Scores in the double digits were not uncommon. Tears were not uncommon either. As I looked at the lay out of the course I determined that it would be smarter to take our tee shot from the top of the hill and utilize the hole at the bottom of the hill (remember there was often more than one hole on each section of astro-turf). With this background information and an understanding of early childhood development the scene is now set for what unfolded that fateful night.

It had been an enjoyable but long day in the sun. We were all tired. We had all showered and were cleaned up for dinner. With about 45 minutes until our dinner reservation we decided to play a round of golf. It was a nice mild night, the sun was setting and a gentle breeze was coming from the ocean. There were many families enjoying a round of mini-golf as they waited for dinner. At this point the resort could have taken a picture for their brochures. All was going fine as we played down hill. When we made the turn to work back up hill the night began to turn sour. Sweet little Laura decided she did not want to play down the hill as was suggested, she was determined to play back up the hill as Emma and Andrew had done. It was one of those moments were you can see the frustration building in your child but they stubbornly will not listen to reason. With each shot she took that rolled right back to her feet her frustration grew. We did our best to distract her, help her, anything to help her through this situation but she was not going to let the course get the better of her. If you can’t tell, Laura is a very determined young lady. This is good in many ways but as you read here it can be bad as well. At this point, there were probably two families backed-up behind ours waiting to start the hole we were on. The tension was building. On one handed, I wanted to scoop Laura up and remove her from the situation but on the other she was doing nothing wrong and she just wanted to make it in the hole as her brother and sister had done. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish that I had picked her up but I didn’t. In the end, Laura broke down in tears and with Charlotte trying to console her, the father behind us said “I think we’ll play through.” Charlotte smiled at him and said, “We’re having a moment.” To which the man graciously replied, “that’s OK, we have those all the time.” Charlotte and I were thankful for his understanding and have joked about his response many times. Don’t we all have our moments?