Duane and I just read the book, “Wonder.” Then we rented the the movie and watched it with our 4 year old. A couple weeks later, our girls were making silly faces, and Big Sis said, “when we do this we kind of look like Auggie, in the movie Wonder.”
My response was, “honey, your sister always looks like Auggie.”
Big Sis looked at Little Sis, tipped her head and said, “yeah, she kind of does.”
Apparently, Big Sis missed the point of that movie, but I love how she does not even notice that her Dada and sister look different. In fact, she is mostly just jealous of her sister’s super-cool hearing aids and collection of headbands.
Intentional Parenting
I recently listened to Bill Johnson’s teaching on Intentional Parenting. Bill said, “I can’t control the price my kids had to pay for being my kid, but I can control the reward they received, and make sure my children benefited because of who their dad is.”
Both of my children experience the cost of me being the Baha Mama. Like when I hide in the office to up-date my Etsy shop or make headbands to mail to some other child. My kids are with me all the time, but they think it’s torture to live without me for a few hours. Apparently Dada is not as accommodating when it comes to their snack preferences. They might starve if the have to finish their oatmeal before Dada will slice a apple for them.
The Benefits of being A Daughter to the Baha Mama
On the flip side, Little Sis has benefited a lot from being my daughter. She is the reason I started an Esty shop. Now she has more headbands than I can count, and if she asks for a new one, I make another for her.
Recently, I realized Big Sis also needs to feel like an important part of Mama’s hobby-turned-business. So I started listening to her advice about which elastic patterns I should order. She is the same age as the children who need headbands for hearing aids. So she knows what is “cool” to a 4 year old. Of course she requested Princess elastic, and then begged me to make an Elsa headband for her sister.
When my girls were babies, I made headbands for both of them. But Big Sis always looses her headbands, so I stopped letting her wear them. Now Little Sis wears a headband to hold her hearing aid, and Big Sis is a bit jealous. I have bajilions of colors and patterns of elastic to make headbands for children across the USA. So I realized I could make headbands for my 4 year old too. Even if she does loose them, I can always make her another one. It’s not a waste, to make headbands for her to loose, if being given headbands helps her feel loved, special, important.
So one day, I asked, “I know you want me to make an Elsa headband for your sister, but would you like an Elsa headband too?” Big Sis was surprised. It never occurred to her that she could also wear headbands.
Now when people compliment her headbands, Big Sis sighs and says, “yeah, but I do not have a hearing aid, because my ears work really good.”
