Unleashing your inner chatterbox

I’ve always been amazed at how people’s personalities can seemingly adapt to their situation. When I was younger I was pretty shy. Not just that, but I wasn’t a particularly strong person. People being unkind bothered me. Walking into a room full of people I didn’t know bothered me. I even got nervous going to the bar to buy a drink.

But as I got older, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I went to university, lived abroad and eventually got a job that required a massive amount of confidence. Both confidence in myself and in dealing with people from all walks of life. I’ve since become hardened to life – too hardened I think, there is very little that bothers me these days.

Even at four years old, I have seen Libby’s personality change as she’s grown. She was such a shy little girl, she never spoke to anyone at playgroup or nursery when she was little, despite talking all the time at home. In fact, I got worried about how shy she was, so I enrolled her in drama classes.Since then, that shy little girl has become confident, outgoing and popular. She loves to be the centre of attention and takes everything in her stride. She talks incessantly to anyone who will listen. This tends to be punctuated only by singing and dancing.

When Lia came along, she was a totally different little character. She has always been incredibly laid back. She’s not shy, but she’s never said much. She’s more observant than Libby and she knows things that we’ve never taught her, just because she pays attention to what’s going on. A great example is the fact that she can now read most of the numbers from 1-20, purely because we’ve been doing them with Libby. When my husband asked her to point out number 18 for a joke and she went to it, he nearly fell off his chair. She never would have thought to have mention that she knew until we asked.

Over the past few weeks though, there has been a change in Lia that was even more of a shock than the miraculous number recognition. It turns out underneath the calm, quiet exterior there was a hidden chatterbox. And with Libby no longer around to speak for her, the chatterbox has been unleashed.When we went tea tasting on Tuesday, Lia chatted to us all day. On Friday, she strolled into nursery and didn’t mind at all when I left her there.

This is a real improvement for the little girl who couldn’t stand to be away from me. And when Libby came home from school on Friday afternoon, Lia was excited to tell her all about her day. One of the most amazing things about having children is watching them change and develop as they get older. And this confident little girl is changing already. I look forward to seeing where her funny, quirky little personality will take her next.