She Broke the Mold

I've been thinking about Alayna a lot lately.  She has such a strong personality and strong opinions and because of that she has been such a challenge for me to parent and teach.  She is very smart and catches onto things fairly quickly.  She's very active and busy but does better when she has a task to accomplish.  When I send her outside to play she usually finds weeds to pull, snow to shovel, or leaves to rake.  She loves having a "project" to work on.

Alayna is also very vocal about her opinions, especially at dinner time.  More often than not, she'll take one glance at her dinner plate and say something like "this food looks gross", or "I'm not eating that".  Which in turn I have learned to laugh it off and make her eat it anyway.  She is also very opinionated about how I do pretty much everything.  She'll critique my driving (go faster! or hurry up! or turn, turn turn!), the way I brush her hair (you aren't doing it right! or Mom, that hurts, stop hurting me!), the clothes I pick out for her (I'm not wearing that! or that's too scratchy! or I don't like that!).  She complains and cries and screams about going to bed, taking a bath, getting dressed, eating dinner, not getting to say the prayer, playing with a certain toy or sharing toys, being the last one to make it up the stairs, not responding to her demands the second she starts demanding, wearing shoes and socks, wearing pants instead of shorts, not singing enough songs at bedtime, not getting a drink at bedtime, and on and on I could go.  Don't get me wrong, she doesn't do her complaining and screaming and crying EVERY time, but I'd say the majority of the time there is some element of sadness to any task she is asked to do.  Which makes it really frustrating and stressful for me.  When Dallin was 2-5 years old, he really helped me learn how to relax and not lose my cool when kids are acting out so with Alayna I've learned to just take it all in stride.  I don't lose my cool near as much as I did with Dallin (who was a very difficult toddler as well, but in a different way).  I remind myself that this is HER problem, not MINE and when I remove myself from the situation I have a better handle on it.  Not to say that it isn't still incredibly hard!

The interesting thing about Alayna is that as difficult as she can be, she is equally just as helpful and loving.  There are times when I ask her to help out with Sadie or Genie and she gladly retrieves a diaper, or the wipes, or a burp rag for me.  She is the first to ask Dallin and Kenzie how their day at school was and she is so loving and concerned about Sadie.  One day we were playing "I Spy" (her favorite game) and she said, I spy something beautiful.  I said the sunset, and she said no, YOU!!  And that just gave me tingles all over.  She is so athletic!  She has a genuine passion for sports, especially soccer.  She is SO excited to start playing on a team this spring.  She has a level of energy that is truly amazing but she can also sit and watch Batman shows with Dallin for hours.  She has an amazing memory.  She remembers all her aunts and cousins' names (even though we don't see most of them very often).  She will find a random toy and will remember that Kenzie got it for her birthday last year.  She will often speak her mind no matter what!  I can see this being a good quality once she learns how to filter her opinions but as of right now she had been known to tell her friends who have come over for a playdate right in mid-play that she's done playing with them and they need to go home!  It's so embarrassing sometimes!

I worry though, that being the middle child as well as being so perceptive and mostly on the negative side of things, she will always feel like she's getting the shaft. I worry that her perception of life will be different than reality...if that makes sense. In the meantime, I try to give her some one-on-one time each day and focus on all the good things she is doing.  My dad always says, they broke the mold when they made Alayna.  Which pretty much sums her up in a nutshell!