A Little Help from My Daughter

There come those moments when you have children when you look at them as if they’ve grown a third arm and wondering, “What the…?  How the…?  Where did she…?” because you are so awestruck by something that has just happened.

That something happened this morning and seemed rather insignificant except that I’ve never experienced Julia picking up on something I was doing and doing it herself that isn’t so much physical as it is mental.

Case in point… as with many days with Raven, we were in the process of getting ready for daycare this morning and Raven decided she did not want to wear what I had picked out for her (reports tell me that Daddy does not have nearly as hard a time with her as I do – guess whose buttons she’s better at pushing!), but it wasn’t even an issue of not wanting to wear that outfit – she didn’t want to wear ANY outfit.  She wanted to wear pajamas or nothing at all. 

So, I began picking two shirts at a time out of her closet, and asking which one she wanted to wear.  She would screech, “NO!  NO SHIRT!” and then break down in tears.  So, I pulled out her kitty shirt and her sparkly heart shirt and began the art of luring her to a shirt based on what was on it… “Raven, isn’t this shirt so wonderful?  It has a PINK KITTY on it!  Or how about this one, it is sparkly!  You LOVE sparkly!”  I was trying.  And failing.

Julia, at this time, had been sitting on her bed observing us, and suddenly she piped up, “Raven, I love your kitty shirt; can I wear it?”  This is when I got a tiny bit worried because the kitty shirt USED TO BE Julia’s shirt and I feared suddenly that Julia actually wanted it be in her repertoire again.  But no, Julia carried on with, “Raven, your kitty shirt is SO cute… isn’t that kitty cute?  You would like to wear it but no, I want to wear it.”  At this point, Raven becomes intrigued.  Raven starts towards the kitty shirt, but then backs off and says, “NO!  NO!  Julia wear it!”  SCREECH.  HOLLER.  So Julia tried again, this time with the sparkly shirt… “Raven, how about the sparkly shirt?  You LOVE sparklies!  it is like your sparkly shoes!  You should wear your sparkly shirt.”  At this, Raven runs right towards the sparkly shirt and grabs it.  We head to the pants drawer next.

I remained quiet through all of this, mainly because my jaw was laying on the floor and I had yet to reattach it.  Color me amazed, but Julia picked up on what I was doing with Raven and started right in, and she even was able to work it so that it worked – in other words, she maintained complete patience with Raven and didn’t show any frustration with her – and that, I believe is what eventually won Raven over… well, that and the sparkles.  (That girl LOVES HER SOME GLITTER.)

To this I say, YAY!  Another person on our (Mom & Dad’s) side in the War Against Raven Being Two.  MWAA HAA HAA!  But seriously, Julia really amazed me today.  WOW!