The other night, Sonya was at Women’s Ministries and it was just the boys and Hannah.  We are still amazed or rather shocked at some of the things Hannah says and does.  What I am trying to say is, we wonder often where she comes up with this stuff.

Now to the story, I was playing with Hannah and she, out of the blue, looks me in the eyes and says, “Do you like my lips?”  Shocked at the unusual question I replied, “What?”  She again asked, “Do you like my lips?” and then she puckered in Hannah’s own way.  So of course, I passionately replied, “Yes, honey, you have beautiful lips.”  She went back to playing.

Later in the evening, after Sonya came home, Hannah was in the kitchen and tripped.  She fell but not just like any fall.  She fell flat on her face and busted her lip.  PANIC!  No Hannah didn’t panic, we did.  There was blood rushing out.  Hannah’s crying, and we are trying to assess the damage.  It looked like a gash in her lip where her teeth hit.  (I was going to take a picture of it when it was bleeding, but I thought you might think I was insensitive. And yes, I knew I was going to put it on the blog.)  We got Hannah cleaned up and she had a fat  lip.

I relived the evening from the question Hannah had asked and then the busted lip.  She needed affirmation about her lips for some reason.  All kids need affirmation, especially little girls.  They need to know they are beautiful.  Affirmation is critical because there are times when they will not feel beautiful (when their lip is fat) and they will have to rely on knowing that you think they are beautiful.

As parents it is easy to talk down or pick apart our kids.  It is a natural tendency to focus on the negative aspects of their character and actions.  One thing I have been trying to improve is to focus on the good in them.  It is proven that negative words last longer than positive ones.  That means, we must give them more positive words than negative.  So when they have a fat lip, they will know that they are still beautiful.