Whittling a carrot

My eldest son is a very serious chap. Here he is having a man-to-man chat on the beach with his dad.We had gone down to the beach next to the campsite for an afternoon of sandcastles and paddling. We had first found the beach the day after we arrived. In the drizzle, at high tide, it was deserted. As the tide went out a tiny new bay was revealed and we paddled through the waves to get there. It was just like being in the Famous Five! However, on the Sunday afternoon, in bright sunshine and at low tide, the beach was busy, full of happy families and the secret part, which we had felt we discovered for the first time, seemed no more than an 'around the corner' bit of beach. My younger two saw this as no hindrance at all to an afternoon of fun, but my eldest was devastated. Crying with frustration and anger that other people were on 'his' beach, he sulked furiously and his only suggestion as to how we could make the best of things was that we should get rid of everyone else!
After I had given up trying to help, his dad took him for a stroll up and down in the sea, listened to all the things that were wrong and the storm passed (Well done, you!)

For his birthday, we gave his a penknife. (I am still not sure about the wisdom of this, but he is only allowed to have it with adult supervision.) He wants to whittle wooden animals to make a shoe-box zoo. My sister-in-law suggested that he begin practising on soap bars and, extending that idea, I thought he might like to practice on a carrot while we were camping. He was very excited, found his Whittling book for guidance, and set to. He was soon very frustrated. It was much harder that he had anticipated and he proclaimed his attempts 'rubbish'. His goal was to reproduce one of the items demonstrated in his book, first go. I suggested that this might be setting the bar a bit high: how about 'I practiced whittling for ten minutes,' or 'I improved my whittling technique.' After a while he gave up, reluctantly admitting that his technique was about 'thirty times better' than when he had started, but this was not good enough for him.

It makes me sad to see him make life so hard and yet I am learning to accept his nature and to honour who he is.

Reflecting on this, sitting amongst our camping equipment, loads of washed and un-washed laundry, piles of books, maps and story CDs from the car, I am wondering about my own goals. Perhaps I should try:

'I will wash, dry, fold and put away 4 loads of washing,' instead of 'Everything that got dirty or slept in is clean'.

'I decluttered for half-an-hour,' rather than 'There is no clutter in my house'.

'My children are happy, healthy, clean, fed and engaged,' rather than, 'I am a perfect mother.'

'I enjoy blogging and some people enjoy reading my blog,' rather than, (oh no, I'm almost too embarrassed to say,) 'My blog has hundreds of readers/is internationally famous/is the best blog in the whole wide world!'