"Huh Huh Pensle"

When do people choose to get a laugh or be cute over show what they know? 

Well for Peyton the answer is 2. For a while she has struggled to say Hensle… she would say her name was Peyton Pensle. We would tell her to say “Huh huh Hensle” and she would reply “Huh huh Pensle” and we would all laugh because it was way to cute. Well on the way home today she had some Tupperware from her lunch with “Peyton H.” written on it. She said “mom why does this say Peyton H. my last name is Hensle”  (and on an unrelated note, yes she has started to refer to me as Mom and not Mommy. This is another post for another day). I explained that Hensle started with an H. Then I told her how proud I was of her that she could say Hensle correctly. She then spent the next ten minutes saying “Huh huh Pensle” and telling me to laugh cause she was so cute. I tried, with no success, to explain to her that is was cute when she was smart, and that she is always cute. Her reply every time was “Huh huh Pensle”.

I am not sure how you break this. I guess I will need to react less to how cute she is and more to how smart she is. I certainly don’t want her to dumb down for a laugh… I mean she is only two!!!

Then I started thinking back to the last month or so. Her new thing is to tell me what she is going to do and how I am supposed to react. Like what she is going to say and when to laugh, or when I get her dressed in the morning exactly when and how I should tell her how pretty she is. This also got me thinking about how at only two she knows exactly what reactions she is looking for from other people. If we don’t react that way she is disappointed.

More then anything I am just amazed at how quickly people can learn how to change their behavior to get the reactions they want from others and how disappointed she already gets based on specific timely reactions from us. I know this never completely goes away. Hopefully she can learn to care less what others think…. But how do you start teaching that to an almost three year old????