The second child

I often think about birth order as I watch my two growing children and notice the differences between them. I am completely bought into the idea that birth order profoundly influences our individual personalities. After looking up 'birth order' on Wikipedia (what DOESN’T that site know), it turns out that birth order is widely unaccepted by psychologist. What do they mean, unaccepted?
With that being said, please take a look at the two pictures here of my second child and only daughter, Abby. In the first picture, she is cheesing in her girly pink shirt. In the second picture, the true story comes out.

Yes, that would be my little girl with her same pink shirt wearing a pair of Will’s hand-me-down jeans. In addition to the boy pants, you can also see Abby’s toys of choice are the cleaning supplies under my sink. She had deftly removed the child safety lock so she could play with the chemicals. When I found her, she was not ashamed or surprised; really she was proud of her ability to get into the locked cabinet. I laughed so hard that I had to take a picture before I locked the cabinet back and steered her back to the toys (some girly toys, but mostly trucks and light sabers).
No matter what is accepted regarding birth order, I know that birth order will have a profound effect on both Abby and Will. My first child never had enough unsupervised time for him to even try to get into a locked cabinet. My first child did not have hand-me-down clothes and he would certainly NOT wear clothes from a different gender group (Matt is kinda crazy about that).
Maybe it is the gender. Maybe it is my parenting style that has changed. Whatever it is, I am watching Abby grown into a little person who has different experiences and a different attitude than Will. Abby is going to be great no matter what birth order does or doesn’t do to her. She already is.

I can be crafty too, you know.

So in general, I am not gifted in the crafting area. Sure, sure I get excited and energized when I go into Michael’s, however my finished products never truly live up my ideas. Take for example my some of good friends who are excellent crafters. When they make a piece of jewelry, it looks like an exquisite piece of art that people remark as “unbelievable.” My homemade jewelry is very believable. While I plan something beautiful, it seems to more closely resemble macaroni/plastic bead necklaces that 4 year old could make.
With that being said, I still do get a wild hair every once in a while to do something crafty. Most recently, I wanted to make Thanksgiving aprons. I wanted to do something nice for all the ladies who were going to help me cook the Thanksgiving meal. I love hosting Thanksgiving because everyone is together in the kitchen working and having a great time. It is loud; there are kids running in and out, and usually a few glasses of wine. Aprons would be the PERFECT little gift.
Here is the pattern that I found online. http://www.marthastewart.com/good-things/marthas-dish-towel-apron
The day I found this, I went home super excited. This won’t be that hard, right? (I seem to always say that before a craft project.) I pulled out my sewing machine that I haven’t used in six years. I measured out my ribbon and pinned my fabric. I started sewing and….it looked like a 4 year old got a hold of some cloth and some ribbon. Darn! Not again!

So here I am with 10 dishcloths, lots of ribbon and a broken craft-loving heart. What’s a girl to do? I called my sister. Rebecca came up the day before Thanksgiving and cranked out TEN great looking aprons, including one for my 18 month old daughter. Next time I will just call her first when the crafting bug bites me.

How quickly you forget...

Yesterday, Abigail was playing sweetly in the sink with two measuring cups. She was having the best time putting water in the cups and then dumping it out.
I was using this time to arrange Christmas outfits, clean up our dinner dishes and charge the camera for the pending Christmas program at William’s school. Matt got William dressed and now it was Abigail’s turn. In my mommy sing-song voice, I told her it was time to get down and get dressed. My 18th month old is a child of few words (she really only about 10 or so words right now) and she simply replied “no.” I told her again it was time to get down. She didn’t even look at me to answer a firm “no.” I asserted my mommy authority and removed her from the kitchen stool were she was playing in the sink.
At this point, my adorable, easy going little girl started a tantrum that would make any toddler proud. She let out a great screech, arched her little back and made herself floppy when I tried to hold her. She DID NOT want her little Christmas dress or a new diaper or her cute shoes.
How soon I forgot about this age. William went through this but I had easily wiped it from my memory once he grew out of it. Sure, we still butt heads, but I have seen very few tantrums in the last year.
In the end, Abby did get dressed, got a hair bow, and was back playing in the sink before it was time to go. I, however, was sweating and out of breath from wrestling the flailing and angry baby into the prissy Christmas attire. I sat back to catch my breath and was very amused how Abby went from zero to mach 10 hissy fit and then back in such a short time. Here is the photo of the face that gave me when it was all over. Don’t let kids fool you, they know what they are doing…