The Bouncy Tigger Isn't Always So Bouncy Fun

So in the spirit of full disclosure and transparency, and to avoid the trap of only conveying the joyous aspects of our expanding family life (remember, "Why do we blog?"), allow us to be real and let you know that all is not perfectly green on the other side of the fence. To get right to the point, Willow has been just an absolute "pill" lately. She's giving us, and others, the worst "stink eyes" that you can imagine. ("Stink Eyes" are those gruesome looks that convey what we commonly know as, "If looks could kill...".) They usually come out when she's tired (she hasn't been napping too much lately, which we'll get to in just a moment) or doesn't get her way. She's starting to hit Poppy (although we can assure you that Poppy isn't entirely innocent either), and she won't eat her meals with us when we're all around the table together. In fact, she'll stuff a lot of food in her mouth, look like a chipmunk, and then say she needs to spit it out. It's pretty gross... we don't need to go into much more detail on that. Of course only moments later after we've cleared the table she's all of the sudden get hungry again. Um huh, right. She's the bounciest little Tigger (Winnie the Pooh) we've ever known (although Barret sports a close "second" in that department when he was her age). Getting her to sit still is almost impossible, and getting her to sleep at normal times is equally exasperating. All of this leads to, of course, her tiredness and subsequent crabby attitude. As a result she's received more than her usual "recalibrations", which she quickly recovers from as if nothing bad ever happened. And one other thing - she's loud. Even Xiao Qian thinks Willow's loud, and she's pretty dang-tootin' loud herself. We now endearingly refer to ourselves as 'The Loud Family". The hardest thing for me, Tom, is that I know Victoria bears the brunt of all this while I'm away at work, and it wears you down when you're all alone. Yesterday afternoon, when I met Victoria and the girls at Barret's volleyball game she said, "Boy, am I ever glad to see you. Willow is driving me crazy. I just need to be next to you to gain some equilibrium", as she grabbed onto my arm with a bear-lock.

As parents one of our problems with Willow is that she's so dang cute and petite that we can run the risk of laughing it off. If you think about it, it's really not that funny or cute at all. And if we don't deal with it now while she's young, as Victoria reminds me all the time, we're going to have a monster on our hands down the road, more so than what we have now.

But lest we leave an impression that Willow is only a stinker, let us assure you that she's also a good, sweet little girl; we would say even most of the time. She's like all of us, we come as a whole package with both the good and the bad. And no one should ever think or get the impression that we don't love her, because I'm not sure we could love her any more than we do quite frankly. We're over-the-moon about this bundle of energy. She's a huge bright spot in our span of life, and we constantly give thanks to God for her. We wouldn't change a thing, nor would we really want her to be anything other than what she is. The fact of the matter is just that she's a big sinner in a little body. And what continually amazes us about these little tikes is that they don't need to learn how to be bad - it comes o so naturally for them. And then they grow up, like Victoria and me, and learn how to mask it, but it's still there and never really goes away. What she'll need more than anything else when she gets a little older is what we all need, a covering that erases the wrong so that we can stand before the One who is right. Thank God for Jesus because Jesus saves us from God.

We can write this about Willow now because she can't read and be embarrassed in front of her friends and all (although she might very well read this later, and hopefully laugh about it then). And if she's embarrassed later, well... then we guess she'll have to learn like what we're all learning and wrote about two days ago, "I do not accept praise from men" - Jesus.

We love you, Willow!