If Nel had 3 Wishes..

Just before hitting the bed last night, Nel and I read a book together (which is what we usually do before bedtime). As I have been recently reading a child psychology book, I decided to use one of the questions on her. I interrupted her and asked “Nel, if you had three wishes, what would it be?”

She smiled and said “hmmmmmm……. No. 1, I wish I could be like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.”

I asked “what do you mean? You mean you’d like more chocolates?? Or to own a giant Chocolate Factory?”

“No” she replied… “ I wish I could be so good just like Charlie. He’s such a good boy. Sometimes I do so many naughty things, so I can’t be so good.” Nel said this seriously and meant it.

Somehow, in my way of dealing with her, I had planted the thought in her head that she wasn’t a perfect child. Well, nobody is, but what she said showed that she had thought about this matter a lot…. Why? Had I set up too high an expectation for her? And I guess, sometimes in my impatience, I’d forgotten the rule of "7 positive comments to every one negative comment."

So we talked more and realizing it was a tender moment, I said “Danelle, I’m not perfect too. I make mistakes too. I make a lot of mistakes.”

Nel giggled softly, looked and me and said “really mum? What naughty thing did you do mum?”

I replied… “well… sometimes I get angry and shout, and say horrible things…. and that’s not good.”

Nel grinned a very huge grin! haha..

“Nel," I went on, "we all make mistakes, the thing is, we ask God to forgive us, and we try not to make that same mistake again. Yeah?”

She smiled and nodded and we prayed together, she prayed a cute, earnest prayer. How difficult it is sometimes for a 5 year old to control her impulses. Impulse to protect her toys, to hit out at a friend when provoked or to protect territory, to snatch etc etc etc. but that’s them, a 5 year old. Well, but I've to mention that Nel is also big hearted, loving, fun, independent, helpful and full of creativity! I’m learning how to handle it as mum, and I’ve to learn to have more patience, less I plant negative images into my daughter’s head about herself.

Her 2nd and 3rd wish were funny things. The 2nd one was that nail polishes would never fade off her nails. The 3rd one was that she could see real snow. Then she got ambitious about a 4th wish, which was “I wish I could have ice cream on my rice.”

I thought…hmm…that one seems possible to fulfill. I’ll go buy a bucket of ice cream now. Haha…

yeah....ice cream is good, especially when used as a bribe...to make up for my imperfections as mum. haha...