(Un)defeated.

My field hockey team has yet to lose a game, people. It is amazing and fantastic, and the girls I coach are talented players who work hard and support each other, and they deserve this success.

Seven games into the season, we are 5-0-2, well on our way to the post-season, playing like champs, executing beautiful plays, knocking in goals, and breaking up other teams' breakaways. There is all sorts of Hawk Pride running through my veins. We face a tough competitor tonight, and the streak could very well end, but I am going to give my best Eric Taylor in a few short hours and get those girls to clear their eyes and fill their hearts like it's the last minute of the season every minute of the game.

But. I have already experienced a different kind of defeat this fall. And my combatant was: the potty.

I thought that Rudy was all set, wearing undies proudly and telling everyone she saw all about it, including the ladies at the eyeglasses store where we frequently stop in for adjustments. She peed in the potty without any trouble, and after some inspirational coaching on my part and some willingness to try on Rudy's, she pooped in the potty, too, and realized that it wasn't so scary after all.

I even gave all Rudy's leftover diapers away to Jackson. Which was dumb.

Because then Rudy proceeded to hold it for days, including days spent off-site at a campground (see my previous entry), and was so uncomfortable and terrified that she wouldn't even get on the potty to pee and had many, many accidents in the days that followed. And I started to be incredulous each time there was a mess, which is the opposite of the attitude a parent helping someone potty train should have, and finally I just had to say, forget it. And so Rudy's back in diapers, and she knows that she's welcome to put the undies back on whenever she's ready to only use the potty for everything from now on. And she's still peeing every so often in the toilet at home, at preschool, at the library, and at her gymnastics and dance classes. But it is still a defeat, one I might have fought longer if she were my first and only child.

I also know, though, that this is only a small setback in a much longer season. And I'm referring to potty training season, of course. But it would be nice to celebrate a post-season win (Go Hawks!) while simultaneously congratulating Rudy on taking back the toilet in her Yo Gabba Gabba undies. I would be delirious with triumph at what my team and my children can do.