Patience is a skill!

As a child I was prone to the occasional(daily) temper tantrum. I would whine a moan about any thing but particularly if I had to wait for something I really wanted. My mother would always say "patience is a virtue." as if god him self reached down and tapped individuals as patient. I will admit that I have known some truly sanctified patient people in my day. My father was enormously patient when it came to kids. He would always let me make the easy cuts with the torch even though it took 5 times as long and wasted the fuel. A calculus teacher in college would go over the same question no matter how many times you came up with yet another amazingly wrong answer.
In lew of these and many other examples I find that when it comes to my 3 year old we have about the same amount of patience that being none. She is at the constantly whinny stage of life. She has vague ideas about what she thinks should be happening and has started to notice that Mommy and Daddy seldom agree with her. I on the other hand think I know what she is capable of, and get immediately torqued when she fails to meet my assumptions.
But today, today I realized patience can be learned. Come to think of it most of the patient people I know are over 40. But today Addie and I both waited....
and waited...
and waited...
then she gave up, but i persevered and............

Wham, I got a bite! mind you it looked like I was taking the hook out of my hand but there was the proof to Addie that indeed if you sit and wait and watch the fish will bite!

So needless to say she was back at it, and for a 3 year old to sit for nigh on 20 minutes in Moms lap waiting, the universe provided even more positive reinforcement and she caught her very own fish!

All this with no meltdowns, a few tangled lines and a father realizing sometimes you "just have to reel in the line!" Marked the first of what I hope to be many fishing trips. Patience can be taught and today was a great lesson!

J