Typically after we talk to Chad's dad we marvel at his inability to grasp just how terrible it is to have to be parents to a child that never stops, moving, talking, and worst of all, thinking. We usually repeat, "She's just curious!" in varying degrees of sarcasm and disdain and then threaten to put her on the next flight to San Fransisco to show him just how curious she is. Not this week. Somehow in all tumult of not sleeping, of both Chad and I working maximum overtime and Olivia being Olivia, for five minutes I looked at her as her Papa does. A sweet, smarty pants who worked hard rehearsing her Ni-hao, Yeeyah to please him. He is proud of her and of us for not killing her. I can't wait until he gets here and mischief turns to inventiveness, hyper-active turns to enthusiastic, and the Papa who hides his medications because he NEVER underestimates her ability to break into anything is here to really enjoy her. So I took her to the lake today to do nothing but be curious and say yes. Though, I drew the line at pulling the dead fish out of the water with her bare hands, it was SO much better to do it with a stick, yeck.
Now I have to stop her from being "curious" about what she can put into the oven. I love when i yell from the next room how the response is always, "NOTHING!!!!" and then she suddenly appears with a big smile and I can just hear her brain thinking, "Smile big, she'll never know-blind her with cuteness." Yeah, I think Papa needs to experience this Olivia, preferably at 8 AM, his favorite hour to chit chat.
4 comments:
I love the pix of O in the chair!
Having helped raise Chad and Sean, I can well understand how O can drive you crazy. It does take a lot of your energy to try to manage her energy to yield the least destructive result.
But the absolutely best lesson I learned from Susan was ... "pick your battles." Stuff that endangers her life or the lives of others must be dealt with FULL FORCE. the rest of the stuff, depending on how ugly the consequences are, require less and less intervention. O is washable, anything she destroys can be recycled or thrown out, walls can be repainted, etc.
It might be time for the hard boundaries talk with her. I think she should be able to understand that when she is told a hard NO it is non-negotiable, but that you and Chad will try to have only a small number of hard NOs.
BTW - you, Chad and O will survive this intact.
Upon further reflection, I think you should read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" before O reads it.
It never hurts to prepare wisely for battle. You can read it here:
http://www.sonshi.com/
MGMT! That's been on my list for awhile, but I've never picked it up. How do you like it? The clips sound awesome.
I enjoy it but Olivia is the real fan.
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