I suppose most people reading this already know that I have two daughters. And probably most also know a little something about their nature. Some more, some less, maybe some don’t have a clue. Regardless of how much you do or do not know, let me tell you a little story.

 

Once upon a time, approximately 7 years and 4 months ago, a baby girl was born. She had shiny black hair, big eyes with long lashes and a small mouth the shape of a rose. She was a happy child, tho needed to be held most of the time. Yes, she cried a lot as a baby, but mainly because her tummy hurt. And yes, she slept very poorly all of her first year, but babies are babies. All in all, she was a sweet little girl, who has grown into a mostly guite sweet little-big first-grader.

 

She learned to talk early and fascinated everybody with her vast vocabulary and realism and sensibility. Oh, she had quite an imagination tho, it’s not like she couldn’t make up stories or like to listen to stories. Quite the contrary! But she knew the difference between reality and make-believe. She has never believed in Santa Clause or fairies on such. Not that we really encouraged it either.

 

Along the way she has done some of the mischevous stuff that kids do. But when I say some, mind you, I truly mean some. For she has drawn to a wall at home once. And cut a curl out of her hair once. And she has taken her friend’s toy once. And cut her sister’s crocks once. Oh,and shoplifted, once. Well, she does toy with the toilet paper on a regular basis. And she does tease her sister a lot. 

 

She has a very strong will and it does often stand in the way of obeying or understanding of reasoning, so I wouldn’t say that she is an "easy" child. No, she isn’t. But she does learn from her mistakes and punishments.

 

When the sensible daughter was two and a half years old, that is, approximately 4 years and 9 months ago, she got a baby sister. She had brown hair that soon turned blond, big eyes and a sweet little mouth. She was a content baby. First months she mostly slept and cried only when hungry. Then she didn’t sleep all that much in the day time, but nights much better than her sister had. She was totally happy on the floor, watching me and her sister. She didn’t need as much holding or hugging as her sister had. Well, that changed eventually, but that’s ok.

 

She learned to walk early and fascinated everyone with her sure and confident moves, even on icy ground. It seemed she was always on the move, but in reality, she did and does have the patience to concentrate on some certain activity for a long time. At two she loved jigsaw puzzles. Nowadays she loves to draw, paint, create things out of paper and stuff. Like her big sister too. But little sister is almost as good at it nowadays.

 

She is very curious. She always wants to see and touch everything. And she is very inventive. She wants to know what happens if she does this or that or something else. And maybe she just doesn’t stop to think. A little too spontaneus, brains don’t always follow. She is the Emil in Lönneberga of our household – and of her daycare too, where she and her best friend (a girl too) are the masters of pranks and all and any mischiveous happenings.

 

She makes sure our life is never dull. Not a day passes without her doing something she shouldn’t. She has holes in most of her nightgowns and she’s destroyed a couple teeshirts and a pair of trousers and a couple sheets with scissors. And a lot of her sisters things. And her parents things. Her bed as well as the wall surrounding it and her bed linen are full of ballpoint pen drawings. And her hands, arms, legs, stomach – always colored with felt pen, or ball point pen. And this is only what she does with scissors and pens (that are still out of her reach basically, but she always finds a way to get hold of them), so just imagine what else she does!

 

Really, anything that pops into her mind. Like washing the toilet with her toothbrush or splashing water all over the toilet. Or scratching dvd’s or cd’s. Taking all and every toy apart if only she can. Breaking, like, everything that is possible to break and often even things that weren’t possible to be broken. She should actually be testing toys for safety. If a toy can break, she will and can break it. On second thought, toy stores might end up pretty empty if she did the testing…

 

So, today. The sensible daughter was cutting paper with her own scissors that are in her own drawer. The creative daughter came to me to ask if she could have a pair of scissors too, to cut paper with her sister. So I gave her, after asking for like the millionth time: "What are you aloud to cut?" And after getting the answer: "paper", I gave her the scissors. And then I continued packing stuff.

 

After a while, the sensible daughter cried out "Mom! Mom! Come, quick!" so frantically, that I dropped what I was doing and raced to see what was wrong. Right. Great. Paper. Sure. So, there was a hole, once again, in the beanbag chair (but luckily the sensible daughter had caught it before any beans had poured out). I made her sow it with me. And the little sister had cut the big sister’s horse card ("my first and only one!" and she burst into tears) and some other stuff too. And her own hair. There was a big gap in her hair.

 

I had to cut her hair very very short to make it look neat again. And the creative daughter cried for her hair. And the sensible daughter blamed the mother and said that now her sister looked like a boy and all strange. Actually, she looks quite cute in her new hair cut. Anyway, it was hard on her. But did ske learn anything? Nope. Nada. Only ten minutes later I found her coloring her hand with a felt pen. And later, in her bed, she had a ballpoint pen and a brabd new graffiti in her sheet.

 

She doesn’t learn! The sensible one does. But the creative one doesn’t. I really don’t know what to do with her. Her inventiveness drives me up those pen-colored walls. And to make it all worse, she has a fiery temper and when she loses it, she loses control alltogether. She hits and she bites and basically acts like an animal that’s being threatened.

 

So, when the sensible daughter was small, I thought I had a very energetic child with a wild temper. Turned out she wasn’t all that bad. Not compared to her sister, anyway. But I love them both very much. Just as they are, even. I hope I could cope a little bit better. And I hope they both find ways to channel all the energy and all the qualities in them in the best of ways. I really don’t want to suppress the inventiveness in either of them. But I truly would like our home and our stuff to stay intact (accidents don’t count ofcourse).

 

So, it became a long stroy after all. Congratulations to alla and anyone who read it this far. Wasn’t about complaining. Simply the time for me to say it all out loud. Or, naturally write it all down. By the way – both daughters resemble me a lot in the good and the bad features described in this blog. So how bad was I as a kid, if I had it all combined? That’s something to think about… Wonder what mom woukd say to this.