Monday, October 6, 2008

Little Women

I previously posted about Evie being beyond her years. She has a tendency to sound so adult in her cadence, it's at times, annoying. I think the reason that it gets on my nerves so much is because I know, deep down, she is parroting me. She'll casually mention that she has the hiccups, then about one minute later, she'll say: "Mom? Why aren't you getting me peanut butter?" (which my DH has convinced the children is the cure all for hiccups) She questions my abilities constantly and incessantly interrogates intentions. I know she has picked this up from hearing me always ask rhetorical questions in an annoyed tone. If I'm not johnny on the spot for her, I'll hear about it. She is bossy but bright. Very bright.
She reminds us of Gab at her age. Gabby could carry on a conversation with you when she was 18 months old. Not exaggerating here! We often had to remind ourselves how old she actually was. When we think back to that time in our lives, we have many regrets on how harshly we treated her. Her verbal acuity did not match her cognitive ability and so we often expected too much from her. I learned my lesson and so I apply it now to Evie. I slip up sometimes, and feel badly. But I could learn a lesson from Gabby once again. Recently she wrote something in her journal that she shared with me:


You can hear my heart sing out loud, but you can also hear
my soul quiet down. Sometimes they laugh at me cause I make mistakes but it's okay because everybody makes mistakes.




I would like to take the credit for teaching her that it's ok to make mistakes. But my perfectionistic manner cannot claim such lovingkindness. I thank the Lord that somehow, my children are learning forgiveness, somewhere.