*sigh*
Alexis seems to be an introvert. She generally likes to go off in a corner and play with a doll or read a book rather than interacting with any other kids that might be around. Not that she’s always that way… she does play with other kids sometimes and seems to enjoy herself. Actually, in general, she’d rather be around people than not; she just doesn’t always want to interact with them once they’re there. 😛
So, if you have an introverted child, which is more important: letting them be their introverted selves, or getting them plenty of socialization so they learn to play well with others, etc? Both things seem very important, so where’s the balance? So far the way I’ve handled it is by trying to give her plenty of situations where there are other kids, but not pushing her to play group games with them or anything. I get reports from Sunday School teachers and such that she does ocassionally play with one of the other little girls in class, but I rarely see it happen. The times I’ve substituted, she’s mostly been by herself. I don’t care if she doesn’t turn out to be a social butterfly, but I’d like her to be able to play with the other kids well, too. Maybe that’s silly. I don’t know. It just seems to me that now is when she’s starting to learn the basics of interacting with people, and even introverts have to do that from time to time.
Alexis has been on a kick lately where, when Joel or I will ask her to do something, she’ll give a very dramatic sigh and say in almost a drawl, “I don’t want to.” She’s learning that that’s not an appropriate or acceptable response. 😛
I let Branwen wash her hands at the sink for the first time today. I’ve always just washed them with a washcloth before because holding her up to the sink in our kitchen (the only sink on our main floor) is rather difficult, but she got her hands so dirty at the playground today that I thought it was a good time to start teaching her. I figured she’d love it since she likes splashing in the bathtub so much, but instead she looked at me very suspiciously when I held her up and tried to grab her hands to put them under the water. 🙂 Oh well. They got cleaned, anyway.
The girls got to help Joel open his birthday gifts yesterday, so they enjoyed that. They also enjoyed his ice cream cake. 🙂 Anyway, he got three gifts yesterday. My parents got him a new TV Guardian. We had one before and really liked how it worked. It filters out offensive language in movies (TV, too, though we don’t watch tv) and replaces the words with inoffensive subtitles. Some of the results are rather amusing, but we didn’t have to worry about the girls hearing something they shouldn’t from a video which was very nice. The one complaint I had about it was that it’s made pretty cheaply for being so expensive. Our old one finally had a connector or wire or something break and we couldn’t figure out how to fix it. 😛
Joel’s second gift was a t-shirt from me. His t-shirts are wearing out, so he had mentioned wanting some new ones. He likes the very clearly Christian print shirts, but the ones he has are from high school and, in a few cases, college. Anyway, he liked the one I picked out. 🙂
Joel’s third gift was a sterling silver poesy ring. When Joel was in college, he got into wearing sterling silver rings. He had one on his right ring finger that he got while dating another girl, and he always connected her with the thought of it. In a very romantic gesture, on the day or our wedding, Joel walked down to the side of the river that flowed near the church where we were getting married, and he threw the ring into the river. It was a sweet and meaningful thing to do, but ever since, he’s rather wanted to replace it with a different ring. He’s had trouble finding one he really liked, though. So we figured out his ring size, and I picked one out for him. I got the Latin version because I took 4 years of Latin in highschool and rather like it. 🙂 Besides, though the Hebrew version is cool (the whole original language factor), it looks like a design instead of words at first glance. The Latin version obviously has words on it. Anyway, I knew I had scored when Joel opened it and got tears in his eyes. 🙂
Anyway, I should go get the mail and read my Bible passage for the day. We’re hoping to go shoe shopping for the girls this evening and maybe eat out if I can find any good restaurant coupons. 🙂 Gotta rest up before having to drag two small children through the mall.