This blog chronicles the miracles and struggles of our daughters, Emily and Olivia. Emily was born 15 weeks early and had many complications, but she continues to amaze us! Olivia, born in China with heart complications, is also beating the odds. She joined her forever family (us!) when she was four years old and has been doing wonderfully! UPDATE: We started homeschooling August 2009 :)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Hippi

Today is crazy hair day at preschool, so I tried to do Olivia's hair like Pippi Longstocking...or "Hippi" as she says on the video clip. She was so cute and excited that wanted to capture some of that in some pix and on video.

As cute as she is, I cringe every time I replay the video because it's a glaring reminder that we all need to work on being more respectful to each other. Olivia, like many previously institutionalized/abandoned kids, still has a strong desire/need to be in control. Her attempts are often disguised as playful banter or pretending to be the mom, teacher or any authority figure--she loves to pretend she's in charge by standing in front of us and clapping her hands to get our attention before requesting, "line up everyone...eyes up here...settle down," or "pay attention!" Even though it's cute and funny now, I am sure that allowing her to try to shush me and attempt to control us might come back to bite us later. It's tough as a parent to find that perfect balance between cutting the poor kid some slack and demanding respect (without squelching her spunky-ness). ...and knowing which battles to pick. Hey, where's the instruction manual?








2 comments:

Jeff and Amy said...

Very cute Pigtails, we are dealing with the same issue, it's cute and funny but where to draw the line, it's hard.

Caroline said...

This is perfect! Jack got such tough news at his visit to Shriner's regarding his speech. They told us to work on Bs and Ps. Jack has watched Olivia do her Pippi, over and over.

Keep the instructional videos coming.

:)

Caroline