Monday, March 21, 2011

A Personality Machine


Anyone who has met Charlotte knows that she's a force to be reckoned with. Usually when parents say that it just means their kid is a brat and they chalk everything up to their "personality." That's not the case here. She's not a brat, but she is a powerhouse.

There's a bevy of stories from my childhood about being overly opinionated on all kinds of things - what I was going to wear, what I was going to play with, whether or not I believed the dictionary when I learned there were two versions of the word "so" (sew), etc. But all of those stories hover around the ages of 2 1/2 -5. None that I've heard start at a year and a half.

So I have no choice but to blame B's half of the genetics for the child's raging opinions to have started SO early. It began as kind of a trickle a few weeks ago and ramped up to a full-on SHIT ATTACK when I tried to put her coat on last Friday.

It was nice outside, so after nap time I got everyone fed and ready to play in the warm temperatures. I reached for a little pink spring jacket she has and when I went to put it on, my happy and content child violently threw her 23 pound body onto the floor and started screaming. Then she tried to run away.

Confusion set in. I cheerily said "Come on! Don't you want to go outside?!" Yes, she nodded. "OK, let's get your coat on!"

Screaming and writhing and pulling away from me and tossing herself around.

Still dumbfounded here.

Then when that little shit composed herself she pointed to her vest that was on the couch behind me. Furrowed eyebrows, speaking slowly... "What? You want to wear your vest??"

Smiles. Nodding. Happy to be alive. Wearing the vest in the picture above.

That energy is going to need a lot of... directing, thus her fairly strict parents.


1 comment:

The Perfect Space said...

Hmmmmmm, good luck with that. For future reference, maybe check this out ;-)
http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Strong-Willed-Child-Clinically-Six-Year-Olds/dp/0071667822/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300806679&sr=1-7

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