Single-Mindedness

Abby has a single-mindedness that is sometimes hard to redirect. Once she gets something in her head, it is nigh on impossible to redirect that. Most times that isn't a problem, because she doesn't bombard the day with her stubbornness, but today it seemed that every time we turned around we were having to tell her, "No!" or try to redirect her. Today was one of those days when even holding her hand so she wouldn't slip on the ice became an issue.

Today we traveled to my mom's to celebrate Christmas with her and some of my other family. We'd deliberately kept the gathering small, but that didn't keep her from getting wound up. To put it simply - Abby was a handful today.

I found myself getting so frustrated....until we sat down to dinner and comparisons began to be made. It started with Jason's question, "Was Elizabeth like this when she was a kid?" The words that my mom threw around were: inventive, curious, precocious, and persistent. From there they digressed into a run-down of some of "Elizabeth's Most Embarrassing Childhood Moments", which I tried to quash as quickly as I could.

Later this evening, as I was getting frustrated because Abby wouldn't let me work on the dress I'm making for her, I realized that yes, I was very like Abby as a child....and in many ways I still am. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a crazy idea in my head and wouldn't rest until I got going on it. Sometimes the only real difference between my single-mindedness, and Abby's is that I don't have someone telling me, "No!"

Hopefully this new realization will help me when it comes to dealing with her stubbornness.

I was able to snap this gem in between stubborn moments. 

And, she was being very cute saying all the lines to "Madagascar 3" on
our drive.