Maeve Croquet

"Croquet is tough. People play for months because the rules are so bizarre. Those crazy English."- Jane Kaczmarek

Some very dear friends of ours invited our family to their house this weekend for a game of Maeve Croquet.  My friend decided we would play croquet as it is usually played, except that Maeve would be allowed to move balls and wickets, and we would have to play the ball from where it lay, or try to get it through its new, difficult wicket.

It struck me while I was losing miserably at this game that Maeve Croquet is basically like parenthood.  Like croquet, it's already a fiendish course with obscure rules, and children are constantly moving the balls and wickets. What works for one parent almost invariably does not work for another, and even changes between siblings.

Parenting is perplexing.  Do you strive for your child's happiness, or excellence, or politeness, or some magical mixture of all of the above?  And although she is happy with the routine today, when she is teething tomorrow do you just force her to stick to the routine even though she's in pain, throw it out the window and try something completely different, or try to do a little of both? 

When other parents of kids Maeve's age ask me about how things worked for us, I caveat like crazy.  Just because popsicles, the alphabet, and clove oil work for us does not mean any of them will ever work for your child.  This is why all of us parents want to know lots of people with kids, so we can gather 500 suggestions and run through them until one works. 

The wickets are moving on me right now, as nap time and duration change daily, Maeve learns to scale more of our furniture, and never likes the same food more than once.  And she, the little ball, is always changing, too, getting taller, more coordinated, more opinionated, less communicative.  And you should have seen how bad I was at croquet; I mean, I was dead last to hit every wicket.  I hope I'm lots better at parenting than croquet, or this is going to be a hot mess.

Observing the madness she caused