"Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice", that's what little girls are supposed to be made of, right? Well, my Hannah just didn't get the memo about that. Okay, I take that back...she REALLY is precious most of the time, but when she is bad...ohhhhh....it's bad for everyone. And it isn't that she is an ugly, evil, hurtful child. She is just as stubborn as, well....as stubborn as her Daddy. (Seriously.) When that child makes up her mind about something, or she just really doesn't want to do something, she just WON'T.
My Hannah has been strong willed since day one. She came bursting into this world a full two months early. No matter what drugs they gave me or what medical preventions the doctors took, Hannah was ready to show them who was boss. And she did. After a very fast, painful, scary labor (with no epidural, mind you - trust me, I begged for one - the doctors said I couldn't have one because they were trying to stop the labor), Hannah Lee made her grand appearance on December 11, 2006. Since she was so premature, I had to reluctantly leave her at the hospital knowing that the doctors expected her to stay for another 6 to 8 weeks. That little stinker came home in 16 days!
Looking back, I can now see signs of how determined she was even in the hospital. Since she was so little, the neonatologist ordered for her to be tube fed through a tiny tube leading through her nose down into her stomach. Hannah HATED that thing in her nose, and would yank it out every chance she got (which would totally gross me out). The nurse would then have to carefully run the tube back down her nose into her stomach (gross! gross! gross!). Well, during one of my visits the nurse saw how it made me want to gag with her trying to guide that thing to Hannah's stomach while this little baby fought her with all of her 5 lb. might, so the nurse said she would do it after I left. And then she forgot! So when the shift change came, the next nurse just made a bottle and "Wa La!", the baby could now bottle feed. And Miss Hannah Lee Humphrey had won her battle. No more tube feeding for her!
Hannah was a perfect, precious baby until about a month before she turned three (this past December). And then something happened. I am not sure what it was, but my precious, placid little girl is now a total force to be reckoned with. (My mom calls it "Spunky", I call it "Strong Willed".) No amount of bribery or threatening or even spanking can get this child to do what she doesn't want to do. When her mind is made up - that is it. So we have had a battle or two (or three or four) every day now for the past four months. In the end, I WILL win. But until then, that little girl isn't going down without a fight.
Please don't get me wrong. My little girl is one of the three best things that has ever happened to me. (Remember....I have two other kiddos.) I wouldn't trade her for the world - even for a more compliant version of her. God gave her to me the way she is for a reason. Plus, as I keep telling Jason, if this strong willed attitude keeps up, we don't ever have to worry about anyone bossing her around. Ohhhh.....and God help her husband.
Happy Monday to you all! Oh, and by the way, I HIGHLY recommend Dr. James Dobson's book "The Strong Willed Child". I think he must have met my Hannah.
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