Obstinant

Another synonym for obstinante is little miss Holly Capri.  This girl is so headstrong.  It seems like it started when she learned to walk (9mo old).  She won't let anyone tell her what to do or how to do it, it must be her way.

The other night at the dinner table she pointed to Calin's "big-boy cup" (just a regular kids plastic ikea cup, not a spill-proof one) and asked for some "muck" (milk).  So I went into the kitchen to grab her a sippy-cup.  "NOOoo!" she said. We had a battle for about 5 minutes of her screaming at us for not giving her a regular cup.  We never give her those cups and I did not want to clean up a pool of milk, especially since she just had a bath before dinner.  But she wouldn't settle for anything else.  She screamed and threw her signature tantrums.  We tried all kinds of sippy-cups, pink, green, purple, minnie mouse, even a bottle.  We kept trying to explain to her that it's too easy to spill and make a mess with those cups.  Of course she just kept screaming back at us, demanding a cup of milk.  Finally Jordan grabbed a plastic cup and poured some milk into it.  And what do you know,  when we handed her the milk, she smiled, said "tank-ew" and chuged the whole thing without spilling a drop!!!  Our jaws dropped and we had a good laugh.  She hasn't completely given up on sippys, but we give her regular cups more often now.

She does things like this a lot.  She fully believes she is a big girl who should be taken seriously.  She means business, and will not be pushed around.

She started refusing to let us feed her when she was 13 months.  She will throw the food back in your face if you try to feed/help her (or even try to give her one cracker/pretzel/goldfish from the bag instead of handing the whole bag over to her so she can do it herself.

Her most recent rant is getting herself dressed.  She wants NO help at all.  So we either have a full-on tantrum till she's dressed or she walks around in a diaper holding her pants, constantly trying to put them on.

It's rare that I can go out to a store (or anywhere) with her and get home without a big tantrum.  It started over the summer at Disney World when she was 10 months old and would refuse to sit in the stroller or even be held.  She wanted to walk all by herself (not even hold my hand) around Disney World.  Yeah. Right.  I've gotten used to her tantrums, and I don't let them keep me from going out, but it's still not fun, and I'm hoping they subside soon.  HA, wishful thinking I know.

But tantrums aside, she is fun.  Super fun.  She is so funny, and laughs at all my jokes even when she has no idea what I'm saying :)  And she is SWEET!  She is always coming up to me giving me hugs and kisses out of the blue.  She loves cuddling.  And we love her to pieces.  Obstinance and all.

My Little Sunbeam

I recently got called to serve in the Primary Presidency of our ward, and it's been so much fun!  But today was the best.  Being in there watching Calin join the other new Sunbeams in Primary was so special.  They were all so cute.  And I was proud of Calin for sitting so reverently with his arms folded listening to the lesson and singing along during singing time.  It was the sweetest and my heart melted a little lot.  

Here he is a year ago singing Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam.  He's mostly just being a goofball the whole time.  But if you skip to 1:40ish on the video, you'll notice he's asking to sing the song again and is making the ALS sign for "more".  He has always done this sign and a few others, but we never taught him any.  It's interesting to see that he's picked them up all on his own.  I actually didn't even know what that sign was until tonight when I finally looked it up.  People always asked me if he knows sign language and I honestly have no clue where/how he learned it.  I wonder if Capri does it too...?

Capri has also joined in on the Primary fun.  Today should have been her first day in Nursery since her half birthday was yesterday, but I stuck her in a month early when I got called to the Primary presidency.  We have 3 nurseries that are overflowing with kids!  We would probably have 5-6 if we had the classrooms for them.  But we have wonderful leaders who let Capri fall asleep on them almost every Sunday.  She usually screams when we leave her, but they are good with her and calm her down within a couple minutes.  I'm thankful for such loving Nursery leaders!

~Bonus~
Church starts at 8:00am this year, and I/we (since we only have one car) have to be there by 7:30am to get everything ready in Primary.  That's pretty early for me to get myself and kids church ready.  And you could tell.  I showed up today with my skirt inside out!  HA!  I didn't notice till I sat down in sacrement meeting (about 30 min after arriving).  Oh my!