MayaI am very grateful for my princess Maya. She is my little sweetheart and angel with a devil’s pitchfork! She has her own mind and refuses to follow anyone’s lead. She forges her own trails and isn’t afraid of anything. She can be the sweetest thing you’ve ever met; every other phrase out of her mouth is “Mommy, I love you”. She can also be the most stubborn thing; one day after being sick of nagging her to help Andy pick up their toys in the basement we just decided the next time to say calmly over and over that she could do the next activity as soon as she picked up her toys and leave it at that. The very next day we had a chance to try out our new technique. I spent two hours in the afternoon answering every request with “I’d be glad to do that when you’ve finished picking up your toys.” It came time for dinner for the rest of us and three more hours of screaming, yelling and crying (fortunately only on her part) the stand-off ended with her falling asleep in her fuzzy pink chair. We put her little sleeping body to bed and the next morning only had to spend two hours saying “Your breakfast will be ready as soon as you pick up those toys.” It took her all of three minutes to put the toys away as soon as she decided breakfast was worth putting away her things. That same stubbornness that tests our patience is also her gift which we hope to cultivate and never crush. When most kids freak out about medicine and shots she says, “I’m excited to get my shots so my body will be healthy”, she cringes for a second when the needle goes in, and then shakes it off and puts back on her brave face. She has the most beautiful smile and sings and dances her way around life and defies anyone not to love her for what she is.
8 comments:
I was starting to think mine were the only ones that wouldn't pick their toys up. She's truly such a pretty, sweet little thing! I love reading stories about your kids! Keep them coming!
Your kids are so cute (I only saw that one picture last November at the Fagioli shower, and having many pics available now is fabulous)! I am so glad to have found your blog; we appear to have some mutual friends in the Horstmans and I followed their link on a hunch. Anyway, it was great fun catching up with you and your sister - please pop an email back my way when you have a moment! Nicole
Your kids are adorable. I too am glad to know that everyone has at least one stubborn child. But, I am also glad to hear that if you are patient and keep your end of the request it will work out. I'm too big of a push over most of the time and let them get away with things when I should not. You've given me an example to follow! Thanks!
Thanks, I think Maya's pretty cute too. We think part of her wildness is that it's hard to follow through so we just avoided setting limits in the past. OOps.
So Nicole, do you actually know Rachel Horstmann? Such a small world, pass a hello for me. What's her blog address?
Maya is beautiful! I love that she is so brave about shots - my 6 year old has to have them a lot and has developed his bravery over time :o)
Adorable child! How did you end up with these precious blond hair, blue eyed babes?!
Daddy's got the dominant genes apparently! Actually most of my nieces from my side of the family are blond and Nate's the only dad with the blond genes, so maybe I can claim my grandpa's blond-hair and blue eyed genes made it through the genetic chain after all.
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