First of all, I have absolutely no idea who this lady is.
She could be on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Maybe she's won a Pulitzer.
She may have just gone down the road to her local print shop and had a dozen
copies of a compilation of her poems bound and printed. It doesn't really
matter though so I probably won't look into it.
Ok, I couldn't handle the suspense and looked into it. She's
a former Food Network champion, motivational speaker, and romance novelist.
What a wide-ranging array of talents if I do say so myself.
I highlight this tweet because I feel that it truly shows
the epic differences between extroverts and introverts in a fun little manner. I also highlight it because it provides me
with a nice segue into a commentary on what it's like raising one child who's
an extrovert and one who's an introvert.
We've long known how Ellie definitely leans towards being
introverted. If she's comfortable with the people she's with, then she'll be
social and will interact. However, if it's a new situation for her, she'll
likely retreat to Bethany or myself for constant reassurance that everything is
and will be ok. Ethan meanwhile could not be more different as can be seen by a
recent trip to story time at the library.
With two kids, I have never quite mastered the art of being
timely. For one thing, I generally don't want to wake Ethan if he's napping.
For another, Ellie really isn't good at dropping what she's doing and getting
ready to go somewhere no matter how many times I tell her. In other words, by
the time we arrive at story time each week, the welcome song has already been
sung and bubbles are floating in the air. With that, our merry little band of
three will make our way to one of the front sides of the room and take our seat
for story time.
Actually, Ethan and I take our seat at the front side of the
room. Ellie finds herself standing in the back of the room for a few minutes,
totally paralyzed by fear/nervousness until she'll finally join her brother and
me. Of course, it goes without saying that I spend the rest of story time
trying in vain to convince her to really take part in activities. Outside of
music time and the parachute, Ellie largely just clings to my side and watches
everything unfold. Not so for her brother. Since Ethan learned to walk, he's
driven by an innate desire to explore anything and everything in his path. When
you couple that with his natural affinity for people, you have quite the
combination.
As story time is pretty much a safe place, I tend to let
Ethan have some free reign. Whereas he used to crawl around a bit, he's now
getting a bit braver with his exploits. For example, this past Tuesday, as the
story was being read, I decided that was a good time to let Ethan explore.
Therefore, I sat back and watched as he did just that.
As he crawled off my lap and stood, the very first thing
Ethan did was take stock of the room. Then, he set off wandering to the back of
the group, happily smiling and interacting with anyone in his path. From there,
he proceeded to work the room like a Presidential candidate as he wandered from
person to person in a room of 15ish, smiling and interacting with all. Before
long, he had made a complete circle around the room, bringing a smile to most
in his wake. Upon returning to Ellie and myself, Ethan plopped himself down on
my lap and sat happily for at least six minutes until music time came. Then,
armed with a ring of jingle bells, he began to once again work the room,
showing his prize to all who would look.
While I don't know if Ethan will continue with his current outgoing nature, I certainly hope he does. For one thing, I tend to lean
towards being more extroverted than my wife and daughter so would appreciate
some backup there. Also, it's just fun to watch the little man make new friends
so easily. If we knew that all a person had to do to make friends is be a
really cute baby, would anyone among us choose to ever grow up? I say "no"
but what do I know anyway? #DaddyWrite
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