Monday, January 26, 2009

"what color is this?"

I just finished reading a friend's new blog... you must check it out - http://imperfectshannon.blogspot.com/ - It is guaranteed to make you smile! After reading it, I thought of all the funny incidents that have happened to me as a parent - there are probably enough to write a book.

As I previously stated, I have three daughters - Nicole, Katelyn and Bailey. Nicole is 5 1/2 years older than Katelyn; Katelyn is 3 years older than Bailey. The age span between our children was not really our choice, but God's choice, as we had infertility problems. We actually had a total of 6 pregnancies, so having children really didn't come easy for us. We have always been thankful for our family, but with the age range of our children, there have always been challenges. At one point, we had a daughter in elementary school, a daughter in middle school and a daughter in high school. And yes, I was active on the PTA boards for each of the three schools and volunteered for every committee (just kidding... I couldn't even get the laundry finished each week, let alone attend PTA meetings or volunteer).

When Bailey was much younger (around 2 years old) her sisters thought that it would be a great idea to teach her colors. I thought that was an excellent idea, after all encouraging my older daughters to teach their younger sister was what a mother should do, right? The girls loved playing school, so each day they would go to our basement and play school for hours. I'm thinking... "boy, this parenting thing is really easy the third time; you just let the older one's teach the younger one's".

A few days later, much to my surprise, I pointed to something green and asked Bailey, "What color is this?" and she said "Yellow..." I, of course, corrected her and said, "This is green", so she said, "green". I then pointed to something blue and said, "What color is this?" and she said, "red". Hmmmmmmm...... I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

Yes, Bailey's older sisters had taught her all the wrong colors and in a consistent manner. She always said "yellow" when you pointed to something green and "red" when you pointed to something blue.

Maybe this parenting thing isn't as easy as I thought... A few weeks later, I was even more upset when we were reading a book and I pointed to a lamb and asked Bailey what sound it made... Bailey said, "Mooooooo!" Parenting is so much fun!

1 comment:

  1. My older two children (Zachary and Marli) told Anthony (who we adopted at age 3) that he had hatched out of an egg. He believed this until he reached middle school. It is difficult to change young minds when they are told this by older siblings they really look up to.

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