{"id":4085,"date":"2010-09-09T21:07:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T03:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=4085"},"modified":"2010-09-09T21:07:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T03:07:20","slug":"life-with-a-spirited-child-new-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/09\/life-with-a-spirited-child-new-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Life With A Spirited Child-New Series!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is the first post in a series of upcoming posts about Life With a Spirited Child.\u00c2\u00a0 In this series, I plan to cover:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em> the characteristics of a spirited child<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>rethinking the labels we place on our children<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>when spirited kids grow up<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>spirited children and medical issues<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>how your own temperament affects your interactions with your spirited child<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>extrovert or introvert?\u00c2\u00a0 (hint:\u00c2\u00a0 a spirited child can be EITHER)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>tips on dealing with each of your spirited child&#8217;s characteristics<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>trouble spots and the importance of planning ahead (bedtime, mealtime, getting dressed)<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/23\/six-tiring-tidbits\/\">another flour-all-over-the-downstairs-when-I-turn-my-back-for-one-minute<\/a> kind of morning.\u00c2\u00a0 After the flour incident (you&#8217;d think we both would have learned our lesson LAST time that happened!) there was the running away and hiding Mommy&#8217;s hairbrush while Mommy is yelling &#8220;STOP!\u00c2\u00a0 HALT!\u00c2\u00a0 FREEZE!\u00c2\u00a0 BRING IT BACK RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW!&#8221; (Do those words have any effect at your house?\u00c2\u00a0 They don&#8217;t seem to work here.)\u00c2\u00a0 Putting a plastic bottle cap in his mouth and breathing in deeply.\u00c2\u00a0 Jumping on Daddy&#8217;s head to wake him up (poor, poor Picky Apple&#8230;I can&#8217;t imagine being woken up like that) and ripping the sheets off Daddy&#8217;s toes to hammer on them with a wooden hammer.\u00c2\u00a0 The need for constant physical contact in the form of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/19\/just-a-little-head-butt-to-say-i-love-you\/\">bumping, climbing, hitting, head butting<\/a> (once again, while I was applying eyeliner).\u00c2\u00a0 The nonstop talking talking talking.\u00c2\u00a0 The screaming-as-though-being-tortured and limp noodle act making it impossible for me to brush his teeth.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was also the spitting water all over the coffee table just to see what happens.\u00c2\u00a0 And that was all before 8:30am.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got a spirited child.<\/p>\n<p>Some days I handle it better than others.<\/p>\n<p>Today was not one of those days.<\/p>\n<p>Since his dramatic entrance into the world (a story I still haven&#8217;t shared here), The Littlest Apple has been marching to the beat of a different (faster, louder) drum.\u00c2\u00a0 An entire <em>drum line<\/em>, perhaps.\u00c2\u00a0 According to The Picky Apple it&#8217;s more like Animal from The Muppets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/muppet_animal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4100\" title=\"muppet_animal\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/muppet_animal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"334\" height=\"255\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/muppet_animal.jpg 334w, https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/muppet_animal-300x229.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s fairly accurate, I&#8217;d say.<\/p>\n<p>Once I realized that The Littlest Apple had his own tune, I felt alone (and I still do occasionally).\u00c2\u00a0 Being The Littlest Apple&#8217;s mother was SO different from the motherhood experience I envisioned.\u00c2\u00a0 None of my friends kids acted like this.\u00c2\u00a0 What was wrong with my kid?\u00c2\u00a0 What was wrong with <em>me<\/em>?\u00c2\u00a0 The answer: <em>nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s just a spirited child.<\/em> (And it turns out that I&#8217;m spirited too!\u00c2\u00a0 More on that later!)<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean to be a spirited child, anyway?<\/p>\n<p>Well, the main word that defines the spirited child is MORE.\u00c2\u00a0 Children that are MORE intense, persistent, sensitive, energetic and perceptive.\u00c2\u00a0 As Mary Sheedy Kurcinka says in her book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0060739665?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thepicapp-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0060739665\">Raising Your Spirited Child<\/a> (my most favorite go to resource for parents of spirited children!), &#8220;Spirited kids are the Super Ball in a room full of rubber balls.\u00c2\u00a0 Other kids bounce three feet off the ground.\u00c2\u00a0 Every bounce for a spirited child hits the ceiling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not always that easy to &#8220;define&#8221; a spirited child, since each of them is unique.\u00c2\u00a0 In my next post I&#8217;ll go in to more detail about the specific characteristics of a spirited child.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone that has spent 5-10 minutes (sometimes less) with The Littlest Apple could easily label him as &#8220;spirited.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s got energy and enthusiasm and demands attention is such a way that is hard to ignore. (Many kids are spirited in a more introverted way&#8230;through their perceptiveness and sensitivities.\u00c2\u00a0 Those are less obvious to the casual observer.)<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, I took The Littlest Apple on a long walk in a stroller to a nearby park.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a pleasant morning, and there were many people out walking and jogging.\u00c2\u00a0 The Littlest Apple greeted each and every one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 But he didn&#8217;t just say &#8220;hi&#8221; or give a little wave.\u00c2\u00a0 No way.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s not his style.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, he was pretending to be a monkey.\u00c2\u00a0 So he made LOUD monkey noises (or was it barking like a dog?\u00c2\u00a0 There has been a lot of that lately, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Either way, it was an animal!) and leaned out of the stroller toward the person and waved enthusiastically with both hands.\u00c2\u00a0 Over and over and over.\u00c2\u00a0 He must have done it about 20 times.\u00c2\u00a0 Some people were charmed and said hi back.\u00c2\u00a0 And quite a few didn&#8217;t know how to react to my NG-tube-wearing monkey boy and moved on as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Life with a spirited child is <em>never<\/em> dull!<\/p>\n<p>Being a parent of a spirited child can be awesome or awful, depending on the day.\u00c2\u00a0 There are some really <em>high<\/em> highs when your spirited child amazes you with his memory, ability to understand other people&#8217;s emotions, creative imagination,\u00c2\u00a0 attention to detail, and his deep and long lasting affection.\u00c2\u00a0 But there will also be some dreadful lows when your child is screaming for 45 minutes because you cut his watermelon into bite size pieces instead of giving him a wedge.\u00c2\u00a0 Or when you have to tell him for the 500th time to get down from the table.\u00c2\u00a0 Or clean flour up off the floor (AGAIN) because you turned your back for one minute.<\/p>\n<p>Is any of this sounding familiar?\u00c2\u00a0 I sincerely hope that you&#8217;ll stick around to read this series, whether you&#8217;ve got a spirited child, were a spirited child yourself, or just want to read more funny anecdotes about MY spirited child.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay tuned for my post next week on the characteristics of spirited children!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Do you have a spirited child?\u00c2\u00a0 Were YOU a spirited child? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/09\/life-with-a-spirited-child-new-series\/\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the first post in a series of upcoming posts about Life With a Spirited Child.\u00c2\u00a0 In this series, I plan to cover: the characteristics of a spirited child rethinking the labels we place on our children when spirited kids grow up spirited children and medical issues how your own temperament affects your interactions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4085"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4112,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions\/4112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}