My two nieces recently watched Beauty and the Beast, for the first time, and have fallen in love with it. The magic of the movie captivates them, for sure. Since then, they have wanted to watch it quite a bit. One of the many times, while watching the movie, we came to the part where Belle and Beast dance in the Library. This is the girls favorite part, and Kailen asked us to stop the movie so she could put on her princess dress and dance. We indulge her, and stop the movie. She gets dressed and asks me if I would dance with her, like Belle dances with Beast. I took offense to the whole beast part of her comparison between the two of us, but I agreed to dance anyway. So she walks up stairs, and has us then start the movie, so she can walk down the stairs when Belle does. It's actually very sweet to see her walking down the stairs all dressed up, waiting for her... (ahem) Beast, to dance with her. We finish the dance and the movie goes on, but then my other niece, Kendra wants to dance to the song also. I tell her to find her princess dress and we would dance together.
This is where the whole personality difference between the two girls, comes in.
Kendra refused to wear her princess dress, and instead is sporting her little girly panties, a t-shirt, and the pièce de résistance... her princess crown. She just wanted to wear the crown. So this little punk plants the crown on her head, and takes her half dressed little body up the stairs. We start the movie, and she starts walking down gracefully, just like Belle. She gets about half way down, and it's as if Belle was thrown to the wasteside, and the Beast stepped in. She starts yelling in this deep guttural voice, "Uncle Tony, Uncle Tony", and I looked because at least she wasn't hollering for the Beast; instead just sounding like one! Once she gets my attention, she stomps her foot, and says in that same voice as before, "COME GET ME!" This Belle must've been worked to the core, and faint, or spoiled and rotten; I'll let you decide. After composing myself from laughing, I did the number one bad thing a parent or guardian can do, and did what she demanded, and got her off the stairs. We started dancing and I thought, "Ok, this might not be bad." Then little miss attitude decided we weren't dancing the right way, and proceeded to tell me how we (I), should dance. I almost threw her. The song ends, and all is well in her world now, and we were finally able to finish the movie.
I say all this to tell you something you probably already knew, but was completely an eye-opener for me... just because children are raised in the same household, does not mean they will turn out the same way, or act the same! I know, I know, that's kind of a "duh" statement, but let me explain, these are the first kids I've ever helped to take care of, so this is all new territory to me. I assumed you raise them all the same, they just tend to be a clone of the one right before them. WRONG-O!!! Kailen and Kendra are literally complete opposites when it comes to... well, anything. Kailen is often times the more gentle, motherly type, where as Kendra is more of the one who will be less likely to share something, or quicker to respond with a, "No", when asked to do something. Man, oh man! It actually makes me laugh to think about just how opposite they really are. It's probably a good thing, that I don't have kids of my own, and that I can "practice raising" on my brother's kids before I actually have my own. The way I think things through, I'll take a chance of screwing up someone else's kid(s), before I screw up my own. =)
*Let me add, I'm totally kidding. I, in no way, would intentionally screw up someone's kid. I'd let their parent's do it. =)*
