September 10, 2006
Pink is NOT her signature color…
Today was a beautiful day, so we thought we’d take the girls out to play on the playground and for a walk. There’s beginning to be just a little bit of a nip in the air, so we thought it would be smart to put jackets on the girls before we took them out. Who knew that would be such a big deal??
For Ryn-Alina I had brought a little blue floral jacket, and for Maggie-Vera I had a little pink blazer. I put Ryn’s jacket on – no problem. But then I tried to put the pink jacket on Maggie. That was a mistake. You would’ve thought we were trying to put her in a straight jacket. She pressed her arms so close to her body that I could barely move them. You’d be surprised at how very, very strong a determined 4-year-old can be when she doesn’t want to put on a certain something. She was wearing a little red velour running suit (which she seemed awfully proud of), and she REALLY did not want that pink jacket on top of that. Still – I’m thinking it’s getting cold and I sure don’t want the caregivers to think that I don’t know the importance of putting children in jackets when it’s cold, so I forced the issue. We got that pink jacket on, but not without an awful lot of tears. On the way out she refused to hold my hand and only wanted Dae Dae. Mean, old Mama and Zha Zha Dae Dae is the hero. Yep – I suspect a pattern is already being set.
When we got outside I finally decided that it just wasn’t cold enough for this much misery in one little girl, so we took off the pink jacket. After that she was perfectly happy and ready to play. When we asked her favorite caregiver why she had gotten so upset she told us that Maggie is very strong-willed (yeah… kinda picked up on that), and she likes to dress herself. Oh goody. Day three: Important lesson number two!
Ryn-Alina is fascinated by all the sounds outside. She gets so excited if she hears a “machina” coming up the drive at the baby house. But she got particularly excited today when we heard and then saw a dog just outside the fence of the playground. She started barking at the dog – and it completely freaked us out. She has this sweet little voice when she’s talking, but when she started barking you wouldn’t believe the deep, loud voice that came out of this tiny little girl. When I tried to walk in the other direction from the dog she just barked louder. I think that was enough to scare even the dog because it ran in the other direction in a hurry! I’m almost afraid to hear her reaction to, say, a cow on the side of the road. She could start a stampede!
