Determination

First Day of School, 2008

When Ella was three years old, she took her favorite stuffed dog to nursery school for show and tell.  The rule routine was that, when you arrived, you put your show and tell item in a basket and it stayed there until show and tell.

When I picked her up, her teacher apologized and said she felt really bad for making Ella cry. 'What happened?', I asked.

First Day of School, 2009

Ella couldn't leave her precious puppy in the basket.  She wanted to share nursery school with him.  So the teacher gave her a warning, took the puppy, and put it back in the basket.  Later, Ella took him from the basket again to play.  So the teacher took the puppy back again and put him up high on a shelf where Ella couldn't reach him.


So Ella took a chair, pulled it over to the shelving, and tried to get her puppy down.  I don't remember what her punishment was.  Honestly, I really think that seeing her puppy up high and not being able to get him back was punishment enough.  She was reprimanded.  She cried.

First Day of School, 2010

I don't know why I thought of this story this morning.  Maybe because this story is so classic Ella.  I'm sure she comes by her strong-willedness (I know that's not really a word - what is the right one?) genetically.  And her passion as well.  And we struggle with it every day but we also love her more because of it.

She still will do almost anything to get what she wants.  We're working on that.  But how do you temper that without breaking the piece that will be so important in the future?  Our focus right now is teaching her to think about how her actions affect (actually looked up on dictionary.com if that was an a or an e) others.

First Day of School, 2011

And even though as I drove her home from nursery school that day I talked with her about how important it is to listen to your teachers and follow directions, I still know that she was only three and she wasn't hurting anyone by wanting to hold her puppy.