Personality

Usually when the personality of a particular female is being discussed, it is an indication the woman in question is rather unappealing and unattractive physically. This phenomenon usually begins to occur in early adulthood.

When speaking of children, personality means, well, personality, those qualities and quirks which form one's character.

At birth I thought my older daughter was going to be a handful. Good Lord. She screamed, she cried, and she wailed the first hour of her life. She was absolutely inconsolable. I was completely miserable.

I kept asking: "Can we send her back?"

Heck, I don't know what her problem was, after all, she was one full month post term. Believe me, ten months was long enough for a pregnancy or "period of confinement", as I prefer to describe it.

Fortunately, once she reached the ripe age of one year, she was a much more agreeable human being. At twelve, she has become rather delightful, considerate, and possesses that "willingness to please" gene that agrees quite favorably with my disposition on most days.

Eight years after the arrival of the first blessing in a diaper, the long-awaited second child was born. Because the first child had to be forcibly removed with scapel via Cesarean section, the second little joy was scheduled to be induced two weeks prior to term with hopes this child would not be too big to make her way through the birth canal.

Apparently, my stomach was the place to be because second child was no more willing to greet me or the world than the first one had been. So, after a second Cesarean, my younger child was finally placed in my arms.

She was as beautiful and perfect as the first with ten fingers and toes; however, she was very different. It took half an hour or more for the drug-addled mind of mine to figure it out, but I eventually did.

Second child was quiet after she was born.

Oh, bliss, oh, ecstasy, this baby was quiet.

Things being what they are and human beings being born with innate personalities all their own, the younger child rocked along quietly content for the first six months of her life. On day one hundred and eighty-one, something obviously clicked and she decided not only did she have a personality, but a will of her little own.

From that day forth, she has gone to supreme lengths to enforce that will, even challenging the will of mine.

First child loved to be tickled and giggled and screamed with pleasure at that kind of attention.

Second child hates, hates, hates to be tickled (and I do not blame her, it drives me insane).

When the wee child was almost two she toddled into the living room where her father was watching football. He had just finished a bottle of soda. When she walked up to him, he began playfully popping her and "tickling" her with the empty bottle. She giggled for a half a second then decided she did not care for that activity.

She expressed her displeasure, but being a man with two younger sisters of his own, her torment and rage only encouraged him to continue, despite her screams of protest.

Watching intently, I intervened and snapped: "Leave her alone. I would not piss her off."

He merely laughed at me and her and continued.

The first opportunity she had to escape him she did. Only when she was out of range, did she stop, turn, and give him a hard glare. She was pissed.

As a child after my own heart, I could see the wheels turning inside that young brain. She was biding her time.

Half an hour or so later, the husband fell asleep in his leather recliner with the football game still playing on the television.

I watched from the kitchen as the wee child cautiously approached.

When she was abreast of his head, she watched his face intently to ensure he was, indeed, asleep. Satisfied she was undetected, she walked over to the side table and retrieved the empty soda bottle.

Horrified of what I thought might be her intent, I merely watched.

She walked back up to his head, checked him closely, then with one quick motion reared back and the bottom half of that soda bottle cracked upon his forehead.

In an instant, he was up and bellowing.

Not quite two, but no fool, she was in motion headed my way. Just as he moved to snatch her fleeing body, I stepped in between them.

He stopped short and with one hand on a hip and the other pointing a finger in his face, I told him: "YOU were told not to piss her off. YOU got exactly what YOU deserved. I'll take care of it from here."

My tone left no room for protest as a red and angry goose egg appeared on his forehead.

He backed off and I disciplined the child with a stern scolding. However, I was secretly pleased and proud of her ability to take care of herself.

Yeah, personality, my daughters have that in spades.