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Raising Luka


A miracle happened in the past week and a half.  Luka went from being an utter little shit to a rather cute little girl.  We are still reeling with shock, waking up every morning waiting for an earth shattering blood curling tantrum, and then she calmly walks into our room, gets in bed with us, cuddles a bit and drinks her tea and off she goes.  We are literally dumbfounded by the turnaround in our little girl, and we are too scared to even speak about this, let alone tell strangers on a blog about this. 

Luka is just different.  Not a single teacher ever described our Luka without using words like ‘feisty’, ‘strong willed’, ‘determined’.  Good when you are Margaret Thatcher or Helen Zille dealing with issues like unemployment and corruption, bad when you are a two year old girl with a mom and dad short of patience.

What changed? I think two things happened, Luka started speaking much better and clearer than before, so we are better able to understand her wishes (commands I hear you ask).  Secondly, we started to compromise.  With a strong willed child, the first reaction is to immediately say no, “No Luka, I will not drop my mascara wand and make you tea whist wearing only underwear and stockings” to “OK Luka, give Mommy two seconds to also put on a t-shirt so that Sekai does not sue Mommy for sexual harassment”.

We compromise. We learn, we are raising a feisty strong willed determined little girl with the blondest hair, the bluest eyes and a killer smile.  It takes all kinds of people. 

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