I have forgotten who my daugther really is

Over the past six months or so I have lost sight of who my daughter really is. She is a spirited child and has been so since the day she was born. I had no idea what 'spirited child' really meant until her gymnastics teacher told me about this wonderful trait. See this blog posting from 2006! -http://cullofamily.blogspot.com/2006/11/our-spirited-child.html

I have been so wrapped up in working, going to school, Lily's preschool, weddings, a baptism, a funeral, several birthdays, Easter, mother's day, and day to day life activities that I did not slow down to pay attention to Lily's special need. Her behavior is different than most children, especially those in her family. She is such an awesome little girl who needs my love and guiding hand now more than ever. She is growing up so fast and before I know it she will be in grammar school and then high school. If I don't give her the tools she needs to succeed and set her up for success then I have failed as a parent.

Louis and I have had a really hard time with her for the past few months and we just want to give up. We feel like a failures when we can not calm her down in out of control situations. Nothing we do works, time outs, naughty steps, chairs, counting. I know that you are supposed to pick one thing and stick with it but we have tried them all over the past six months. She is different and until you have a spirited child you really wont know what I am refering to. Actually the only thing that works is grabbing my Super Nanny book and telling Lily that I am looking for the Super Nanny's phone number. She sometimes calms down after that. I even called my mom once on the phone and told Lily that I was leaving the Super Nanny a message. That was pretty funny...my mom was laughing on the other end, it was hard to keep a straight face.

It isn't like she has ADD, we have kids in the neighborhood who have ADD and she isn't like them at all. She is just more intense in her ways. She feels more, reacts more, has a more "spirit" about her and is very smart. I am sure you have come across adults like this and you probally admire them for speaking up about a situation or being the leader of a project or movement, spirited people are not afraid to be the leaders. Just imagine what they were like as children. Funny story...Lily likes to play "Follow The Leader" and announces " I'm the leader"...guess that is a sign.

Something just clicked this weekend and I realized that I need to gain control of the situation and help Lily because everyday is such a struggle with her. I have read 1/2 of the book "Raising Your Spirited Child". I stopped reading it about a year ago because Lily was acting better and I thought that she had outgrown it, but now I know that is wrong. My goal is to finish it before school starts up again for me in a few weeks.

The best place for her was in Preschool with her wonderful teacher Miss Cindy but we will have to wait until things calm down a bit in our lives for her to go back there. I think that she soaked up everthing Miss Cindy was teaching and I can see that she is going to do very well in school.

A few days ago she wrote her name on a piece of paper and said the letters outloud as she did it. Her writing is wonky looking but she did it and I was amazed. She can also count on her fingers to 10, I think that is super cool too. She is almost 3, Sept 9th is her birthday and I just can't believe that she is getting so big. She has outgrown a lot of her things and is now into Radio Disney and really digs Hannah Montana.

This is a nice little blurb about Spirited Children - http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-spirited-child.htm