Like mother, like daughter

So you know how sometimes parents will say, "I hope you have a child just like you." Well I don't know if my parents ever said that. But if they did, they got their wish.

When I was little, I was a terror. I couldn't sit still for the life of me. One day we were having dinner, and I just wouldn't stay sitting in my chair. My parents finally took my chair away, and told me that I had to eat the rest of the meal standing. So what did I do? I went and stood on my head on the chair. I don't really remember doing this, but I've seen the picture my parents took. So I know I did it.

I also had a really hard time sitting still in church. Most of my younger years, my father had church responsibilities that kept him from sitting with my mother and us kids in church. I am the 2nd child of 9. You can imagine the circus that my mother sometimes had to deal with. And I am ashamed to say, I added more to the problems than helped. When a younger sibling needed to be removed from the meeting, my mother would ask my older sister or me to take them out, because she needed to stay with the rest. I remember sometimes when the meeting was getting awfully long, I would attempt to stir up restlessness in a younger child with the hope that maybe my mother would let me be the one to take them out.

I also had a knack for destroying things. But I don't think I ever did it intentionally. I think my curiosity just go the better of me. For instance, my mother had this lamp. It was a beautiful lamp. I think her brother brought it from Japan, to give to her. It had a Japanese lady, holding a long sheet of paper, that reached down to the floor. She was in a glass encasing. And this was the lamp that was in my sisters and my room, when we were little. I remember one day I got curious as to what the paper that the lady was holding said. So I encouraged our neighbor, who my mother baby-sat, to help me break the lamp so that we could get to that paper and see what it said. Disappointingly it didn't say anything, that at least I could read. It might have had some Japanese characters on it, but I don't even remember if that was the case or not. But now the lamp was ruined.

Another time, I was playing ponies. My sister and I had a few My Little Ponies, and my sister also had a brown horse, that was about the same size as the My Little Ponies, and so it would be played with at the same time. Well I got this brilliant idea. The brown horse needed to have pictures on it's sides, just like the My Little Ponies did. So I got a pen and drew some pictures. As you can maybe imagine, my sister wasn't too thrilled with my artwork.

Those are just a few of my many exploits when I was younger. I have a brother who is 17 months younger than I am. He was often my partner in crime. We drank my sisters perfume, and ate her chap stick. We stayed home sick one Sunday at Christmas time and decided to do what ever we could to discover what all of our presents were.

Sometimes I would do things, and get others in more trouble than I got in. I cut up the shower curtain, and left my sisters scissors sitting by the tub. My father put us both on chairs, and when I told him I was sorry I was let free. My sister, the innocent one, tried the same tactic, and was told no. My Dad figured she was just trying that because I had gotten away with it.
Another time I asked my older sister to cut my hair, and she did. Then when she was done, I went crying to my mother, that she had cut my hair. Her punishment was to have her long tresses, which had never been cut, chopped. She cried the whole time.

Wasn't I a bad little girl. I must have stressed my mother terribly.

Well now I have Cinderella. No she hasn't done many of those exploits, and I pray that she doesn't, but to an extent, I can see her already on that path.

For her last birthday she got a book. It is called Hide and Seek Dragons. I got it for her because she was on a dragon kick. She loved dragons. It has flaps, as well as being a touchy-feely book. Well a few days ago, I was in the kitchen making dinner, and I hear a "rip" noise. I immediately turn to see what is being torn. There is Cinderella looking at her Dragon book, tearing all the flaps off. The last flap she tried had torn part of the page with it, making the sound I heard. I told her the book was broken, and that it needed to be thrown away. The thought of throwing that book away, made my stomach hurt. It was a nice book. We had spent a lot of money on that book. It was a book she really liked. She just turned to me and said, "I don't think it will fit in the garbage." I told her it would, and so she went calmly and put the book in the garbage, acting like she didn't care at all.
Then I was mad. I went and got a box and boxed up all the books that were in her reach that could be easily torn, and told her, she couldn't look at any books for the rest of the day. Now that got her upset.

So, now all of those books are still in a box, in my closet. I let her have a few of them for quiet time, but other than that they stay in my closet. I'm not sure yet when to pull them back out. But she hasn't really asked for them yet, so I'm not in any hurry.

I just don't know what to do, to help her overcome this. Because, like when I was little, I don't think she is meaning to destroy the books. I think she just acts on the impulse. And tearing the books is what happens.

Oh well, maybe she will have a child just like her too.