Diligence

Brooklynn is the most diligent person I know. This trait can come out in a variety of ways . . . when she was sleep training it was manifested in a tenacious bout of strong will, where she fought against forming her self soothing tools for weeks. She eventually learned that the hard way is not as much fun (nor as beneficial) as the easy way, and ended up spending her early years on a wonderful predictable pattern of naps.

When she was learning to walk it was manifested in an obsessive drive to practice, over and over and over and over (falling every time she got up) until she had it mastered, in one day flat.

I watched Brooklynn work with her diligence last week again; it came up when we were talking about choices. Some choices are "bad" choices. They come with a consequence. Other choices are "good" choices, they come with privileges. Privileges can be as simple as a good feeling inside when you make that choice. We spend a lot of time asking each other what kind of choice we just made, and how did it make us feel? In this discussion, B tried out the word "privilege", and it came out sounding more like "Prib-a-didge". Instantly she stopped, tilted her head in frustration and said to me "mom, I don't say that word very well."
I smiled and said out of habit "well, hard things take practice until they're easy". And thought that I'd leave it at that, turning my back on her to continue working on making dinner.
Then I heard it. For the next 10 minutes Brooklynn practiced this word. Over and OVER and OVER, every once in a while with me saying it back to her so she could hear the word correctly.
She worked. Hard. And it paid off. She beams with pride every time she gets an opportunity to say PRIVILEGE, with perfect enunciation. Sometimes I even hear her in her bed saying it quietly before she falls asleep.
What an amazing little driven girl. And what a good ear!