Strong willed, yet delightful

We always thought that our eldest Ellen was rather feisty, but have since learned that she is rather calm and laidback in comparison with her little sister. Olivia has a strength of will that is deceptive to most ('But she's such a sweet little thing' - we hear a lot!), and at not yet 18 months is determined to make a mark on her little world - by hook or by crook!

A new facet of this has manifested recently with her 'stand' of defiance - which is more like a bend really. When told 'no' or to do something that she doesn't want to do - you know something really unreasonable like "Pick up that toy please", she bends over at the waist and puts her head on the ground and stands like that for 20 seconds or so (quietly - not screaming or anything) - then straightens up and takes off in another direction. Now apart from her obvious flexibility (there's not way that I could get my head down to floor level!), it's rather amusing to watch (without smiling of course!) and interesting to deal with.

The other night she had been playing up and therefore was having an early bath (on the way to an early night) - however she wasn't happy about the fact, so she was trying to put her head down (which of course meant under the water) and was getting crankier and crankier at Greg who kept lifting her head above the water again! This was a rather noisy (and wet) occasion and one of the quickest baths to date - I think we were all glad when she finally calmed down and went off to sleep. Thank goodness the girls still have their bedtime at 6pm - some days even that seems late!

Don't get me wrong - I love my girls and we have a great time together doing all sorts of fun things, but there are some days...you know the ones... This parenting thing is a lot harder than it looks!!! Worth it in the long run I know.

The photo above is of our recent trip to the beach - Olivia loves to potter around doing her own thing, and is far happier outdoors and busy, than indoors and bored (like most kids), so she likes nothing better than a good time digging and eating sand at the beach. We spent ages jumping waves (little ones of course) and finding shells - fortunately they were deemed early on not to be too tasty!