Interests:My hubby & my kids. I love books and good movies (I liked AMC before it added films made after I was born). Downhill skiing, water skiing. Expertise:Swedish pancakes, and just about any breakfast item. Between Jeff and I we can make a pretty mean brunch. Occupation:Engineering Industry:Hospitality
Just two weeks after Lydia was born, our kids got to know “Big Lydia.” They were so excited to meet someone with the same name as their baby sister, and evenmoreso when Lydia Smyth turned out to be so fun! Big Lydia was only here for the summer for our Chicago Summer Project, so once she went home, Elise would periodically ask when we would get to see her again.
All fall Elise waited for our November staff conference when the big day would arrive and she would get to see Big Lydia again.It was very exciting!So, I haven’t heard the question in a while, but today, in the car, Elise asked, “When do we see Lydia again?”At first I didn’t understand, Lydia was right their, in her car seat.Then I realized she meant Big Lydia.Fortunately it won’t be long, we get to see her again after Christmas at the student Christmas Conference.
This led to a discussion on where Lydia lives.Elise asking over and over, and Joshua answering various exotic places each time, and Elise saying, “No!Where does Lydia live?”Finally, to stem the tide of the rising noise level, I answered, “Indianapolis!”
Now enter the latest craze in the Koch household, willfully misunderstanding a person’s words, because it’s soooo funny.For example, yesterday, when told to pick up in the living room, all three children were found “picking up” things and tossing them in the air, while chanting, “I’m picking up!I’m picking up!”I can’t even express how annoying this gets after a while.
So, Joshua’s response to Indianapolis was, “You mean Indians are napolis?”
Mom’s smug reply, “Yes, Joshua, that’s what I meant.Do you know what napolis means?”Very easily pointing out just how ridiculous he was being because he couldn’t possibly make that into a word.
So, Jeff's really learned a lot lately about the Myers Briggs personality test and how that affects a team in terms of planning and working together well. It's been fun also to see how our personalities affect our marriage and communication. We began to think about it in relation to our kids as well.
I am an ENTP, which makes no sense unless you are familiar with Myers Briggs, but I'll explain what is pertinent to the following story. My oldest daughter, we are convinced, is also an ENTP. The part of this which is most, um, exasperating? is the N. It stands for Intuitive. In this part of the Myers Briggs personality assessment, you are either Intuitive - N, or Sensing - S. Jeff is an S. He wants data in order to make a decision. What are the facts of the situation? What is the real problem? What do we need to address and how can we best address the issue? I don't always even notice the facts. I often just tell Jeff, we need to do... insert solution... without even stating that there is a problem I'm addressing. As you can imagine, this can lead to conflict. This is why it has been helpful to understand one another's personalities. When Jeff would ask questions, I felt like he was doubting me, when in reality he just needed to understand the situation in order to take action. Often, if I just back up, explain the five W's and an H and why my solution works for the current problem, he'll come on board in a heartbeat. And occasionally he even brings some facts to bear on the situation which makes my solution no longer necessary. BUT that doesn't happen very often, because, if you know ENTPs, you know - we are always right...
Anyway...
Back to Brittany. Brittany is also an ENTP. This means she always thinks she's right too. But, here's the thing, in personality development, the N develops firsts and is tempered later in life by the other aspects of the personality and experience is a big help in this. So, how does this play out? Well, Brittany sees something happen and then instantly explains why it happened or correlates the action to how something will always occur. For instance, for Halloween, the kids were all Star Wars characters.Elise wore makeup on her face.Elise ended up throwing up that night.Since Elise was the only one who wore makeup and she was the only one who threw up, Brittany decided that the makeup made her throw up.In fact, after Brittany said that, Elise started telling everyone the makeup made her throw up.Brittany becomes so convinced of these things that she rarely even listens to reason when I try to explain her intuition was wrong.
Well, with age, wisdom and experience, perhaps one day she will be able to be right all the time like her mother.
So, to make life a little easier the other day, I decided to listen to the audio cd of our history lesson. This posed a bit of a challenge as our home is set up for listening to an iPod, not cds.
I rose to the challenge and found our old cd 'walkman' and brought it down to the kitchen along with our iPod speakers.
The questions that arose were hilarious. "What is that?!?", "Oh, I see, you've got the speakers - but daddy has the iPod, how are we going to listen?"
Forget 8-tracks, vinyl albums, and cassettes, this generation doesn't even listen to cds. The cds are just a vehicle for loading songs onto an MP3 player!!!!
So, I was sitting at my laptop yesterday and Elise approached me to tell me something important about what was going on in the back room. It was so important that I have no idea what it was. Anyway, she then proceeded to tell me, "I love Daddy the Most. I love him more than you." Oh.
Keeping my pout at bay, I plunged in, "Oh, why is that?" I braced myself. This is my daughter who wants Aunt Julie to be her Mommy because she gets more candy and thinks that she'd get to pick more flowers too. This is the same daughter who told me she wished Tristan's mommy was her mommy one day last week when I asked her and her brother and sister to tidy up their mess (she got hearty agreements on that one!) So, I got ready, was it that I didn't even look up when she brought me the important new I can no longer remember? Was it that I don't cuddle, listen or feed her enough?
"Well, you have girly hair and he has none. He's bigger than you. AND he'll always be older than you."
Elise is really fond of finding matches. Everywhere we go, if she recognizes one, excitement ensues. Sometimes it's a verb/noun match. For instance, we drove past a building site and when I said, "Look what they are building here," she found the match, "Building that they are building and a building. That's a match!" Sometimes it's more complex, "Mommy, I hear what you are saying, and I'm here. That's a match!"
One day when Grandma was visiting, Elise found a match and I explained about how she liked finding "matches" or homonyms. Elise exclaimed, "That's a match...homonyms and M & Ms!"
