chronicles of makayla

i realized that both of my children could be poster children for sibiling order. ethan as described before is a charmer, manipulater, irresponsible and fun. makayla on the other hand is a typical older sister - responsible and sympathetic. other than that, i feel like she's a mini-me.

point 1: loves crafts

makayla is a prolific crafter - the amount of paper we go through in drawing and making will make al gore cry. she loves it. she put on a paper puppet show the other day. she drew and cut out different people and went behind the cabinet. using two puppets, she said "hi mommy, this is ethan and this is 'kray-gee'" i was like "excuse me?" what is the other puppet's name? " "kkkkrrraaaayyyy-geeeeee." i started to crack up - she even talks like me - whenever i see something strange - i say 'that's kray-gee.' i guess she couldn't help but pick that up.....

point 2: language inclined

i'm not joking when i say that her polish is better than mine - and we both take a class once a week. she can count in polish, french, italian and chinese and sing happy birthday in english, polish and french.

after one lesson in sunday school, makayla comes to me and tells me "mommy, do you know what corn flakes in polish is?" "i don't know" "it's MANNA!" apparently, they were doing a lesson on moses and wandering in the desert - the teacher (obviously teaching in polish) sprinkled cereal shouting "manna, manna!" how can i confuse her further and tell her that it's Hebrew and that was the language used during the Bible times - too much info for even my fully developed brain. so we just left it at that. we'll most likely have more trouble when we go back to the states and she has another bible lesson about manna. she'll REALLY be confused as to why people are speaking Polish!

point 3: empathyetic

makayla is a bundle of empathy and sensitivity. though i'm empathetic, i'm not so sensitive so it's difficult for me to understand when makayla can't watch any of the disney movies b/c she's crying at every remotely sad scenes. i.e. when belle is separated from her father in beauty and the beast "wahhhhhh, belle is not going to see her father again.....wahhhhhh." or when nemo is taken away "wahhhhhh, nemo is separated from his father.....wahhhhhh." she'll start bawling that it's not worth watching it with her. so we usually settle for miss pattycake or leapfrog word factory.

point 4: can't let things go

this is another similarity between mak and i. we can't simply let go of conflicts until we're truly reconciled. the other day, makayla got reprimanded for disobeying. she immediately said "i'm sorry" and i thought we were over it. but she continued to sit there, thinking about it and when i finally approached her, she started to tear and said "but you hurt my feelings when you said ....." so i had to apologize that i sounded harsh and we hugged and made up.

point 5: she's a great sister

since only my brother can deny this fact and i don't think that he would be posting any rebuttals here so here it goes.

makayla takes great care of ethan - i couldn't have asked for a better helper. she puts on his coat and shoes and feeds him when he's being lazy. when i gave pasta salad to them today, she started to feed ethan. i said to her "you should eat yours, let ethan eat his." she replied, "it's okay, i'll feed ethan first, i think he's hungry."

it's also funny to see her future parenting style - which is a replica of ours, obviously. she would say something like "ethan, eat your pasta. do you want a cookie? then you have to eat your pasta. if you dont' eat your pasta, you can't have any cookies!" - just like joe - reward and threat - only ammos in joe's parenting bag. me on the other hand, is much more sophisticated, i also have manipulation and coersion!

it would be nicer if ethan appreciated all his sister's efforts and didn't try to swipe everything mak plays with and end up wrestling which inevitably ends with one of them wailing.....