Product reviews, parenting articles, and advice for first-time moms from the experiences of real-life mommies.

It never even occurred to me until recently that my oldest daughter could have a different personality than me. Subsequently, it never occurred to me that some of those differences could be part of what drive me crazy every day. Of course, some of the craziness it just because she’s three, but as it turns out, some of it is just who she is.

It was around Halloween time and Shawn and I were talking about what we were going to do. It always sneaks up on us since we are usually deep in the throes of the annual art contest we help administrate and it’s right after his birthday. And, since I’ve always had an aversion to the ‘holiday’ it takes extra effort on my part to even think about it, much less make plans for it.

But, this year we realized we couldn’t avoid it anymore. Kate is finally old enough that she knows about it now. And, she LOVES to dress up. So we came up with a great compromise plan – Kate could dress up in her ballerina tutu and pass out candy to all the ‘trick-or-treaters’ that came to our door.



The night arrived and we told Kate the plan. She ran to her room to get on her beautiful pink tutu and slippers. Then she ran back into the kitchen and asked, “Mommy, when are the trick-or-treaters going to be here?” So, I explained that we would just have to wait for the door bell to ring. That obviously, was not a good enough answer. So, for the next 20 minutes she would ask excitedly every 4 or 5 minutes, “When are the kids going to be here???”

When the first trick-or-treaters arrived at our door, Shawn and I let out a sigh of relief (we were beginning to worry that no one was coming) as Kate RAN to the front door. She thoroughly enjoyed handing out candy to each individual kid and seeing all their costumes. We then told them all to have a fun night, closed the door, and put the bucket of candy back on the floor by the door. As soon as the bucket hit the floor, Kate asked again with a HUGE grin on her face, “Mommy, when are the next kids going to be here?”

That night Shawn and I made an interesting discovery. Our oldest daughter is an EXTRAVERT! For any of you who know us and our daughter, you are probably thinking to yourself, ‘duh. I coulda told ya that!’ But, honestly, that was really the first time that it dawned on me that she was SO bent that direction.

Since then we’ve had fun identifying the different ‘quirks’ of hers that stem from her extravertedness (is that even a word?). Like the fact that she HATES to be in her bedroom by herself at night. She will come up with a thousand different reasons to NOT be in her bed every night. And, while I know some of that is also just her age, a big part of it is that she just loves being around people.

It hit me with new depths just this week when I was reading something about personality types and it mentioned that for an Extravert, loneliness is hell to them and something to be avoided at all costs. And, for an Introvert, interruptions and confusion are their own hell and to be avoided. So, when my extraverted daughter doesn’t want to be in bed during nap time and comes to the living room ONE more time to tell me she loves me, it aggravates me because she’s interrupting my book reading, or my email typing, or (heaven forbid) my Oprah watching.

So, now I’m on a quest to figure out how to better parent her according to her personality and not my own. I’ve found a couple of great resources that I’ve just started looking at. For instance, this website for personality types with a whole section about kids, PersonalityPage.com,
and this book “Nurture by Nature: How to Raise Happy, Healthy, Responsible Children Through the Insights of Personality Type” with it’s corresponding website
NurtureByNature.com.

I know that it will be a lifetime of learning how to parent her in the adage of “Train up a child in the way HE/SHE should go”, but the good news is that I’m willing to learn.