I need to remind you Daddy.....

That is a 3 year old daughters way of asking for the same item at least 40 thousand times. There are all sorts of ways of asking for something. Like our insistance on the word Please and Thank You. If either of those words are missing from a request, forget it, you ain't getting it. Our little girl has it down pat. Everything is preceded by "Please" and followed by "Thank You". She doesn't like you to forget things. Hence the "I need to remind you Daddy that I want a video please". Don't you just love them.
Fortunately, as yet, she hasn't informed us in a loud voice in public that Cathy "needs a nappy change daddy".
Oh, and now she can peel sweet potatoes "all on my own Daddy". And she can. She has only been trying to get a handle on the whole potato peeler for near on 12 months. She is ever so proud of herself.
Not forgetting Cathy. She is the best. We have lots of "dad and daughter" talks up on the change table. Usually while she is trying to get traction with her foot on the inside of a pooy nappy that I have just undone. Man, baby poo goes a long way. But it's all worth it. We have some fun times up there. It is even better when Michele decides to help. Then we go from the change table to the double bed. That way Michele can get involved with helping. She loves to help with her little sister and for her part Cathy will smile at Michele when none of the rest of us can coach a smile out of her.
What did we do today you ask? Well I am glad you did. By most peoples standards ours was a boring day. To church then lunch at the hub and then video and roast dinner. But the video was interesting. It was by a certain Mr Pearl and was about child rearing. It was excellent. The man doesn't have a good reputation. Though for the life of me I can't work out why. He and his family are attachment parenters who set boundaries. That's guaranteed to get peoples backs up straight away. But it's true. Let me give you an example.
Your child has a bad attitude and is grumpy. His solution? Find out why. Look at yourself first. In fact he does a lot of telling you to look at yourself. Examine your motives and why you deal the way you do with a child. Any way, back to the child with BA. Is it a one off? In other words, is your normally happy child, like our little Michele, just grumpy this once, or is it continual? If it is a one off, chances are if you deal with it that will be the end of it. Discipline the child and life goes on. However, maybe your not smiling enough and your generally picky? Then change your attitude and the child also will smile. Then dig a little deeper and find out what is bothering the child. And so on it goes. A question came up a little while ago about demand feeding and co-sleeping. That's another hot topic. He and his wife asked the people in their community for their opinion. They live in an Amish com unity. The people looked at them like they were nuts. Of course they all demand feed and co-sleep, what's wrong that the Pearl's needed to ask a silly question like that.
Back to the child with the BA. Now that set me and the Boss to talking over the meal. We both agree that one has a tendency to bring up our children the same way they were bought up. For example, you the mother was a "nagger" then chances are her children with "nag" their children. If the mother was a "hit first and ask questions after" then the child will tend to do the same. It gets down to what the Bible says about "the sins of the fathers being visited on the second and third generation". It's like a never ending merry go round that we can't get off. Some one has to break the mold. May I break the mold that my mother set and probably her mother before her. Amen.