She is just like me.

I admit it, sometimes I am just plain SCARED of my daughter. OKAY, so maybe not scared like I am of spiders and scary movies, but scared of how like me she is.

 A running joke in my family is how big of a baby I am when it comes to  anything medical and anything remotely painful. Examples: I used to scream every time I got my hair washed (because I hated water in my face). I have been known to walk around for a WEEK with a splinter in my foot because I was sure the pain of pulling it out would be way worse than the pain of keeping it in. I once locked myself in the bathroom when I cut my leg open and refused to open it until my parents promised they would not make me get stitches. I once was screaming and crying so much while in the ER, for my BROTHER being treated with a gash to the head, that the Dr. didn't know whether to treat his injury or me for shock first. At the camp I worked for in California, I was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider and when the Dr in the emergency room brought out a HUGE needle to extract a "sample" from my leg I told him "Seriously, I'll be home in two days. Lets just leave it be until I get back to Ohio." (lucky for me the Dr. did not listen to a word I said.) How ridiculous, right? I did eventually get over my ridiculousness. About 6 years ago I put on my "big girl panties" and actually elected to have surgery to find out what was going on with my infertility. Alex and my Mom were pretty surprised at my quick willingness to have surgery at all and even more so with the fact that I wasn't even nervous about it! ( I was shocked at myself as well.) From that surgery (and the pain from recovery on) I have been a very different person when it comes to pain etc. Maybe something in me clicked cause I went through childbirth without an epidural and have since had to deal with other pretty painful things with a pretty good attitude. Don't get me wrong - I don't ENJOY pain, but I just don't worry about it like I used to. 

So.....now that we have had a short "History of Insanity With Jodi", back to Isabella. 

I always hoped that Isabella would NOT have this personality trait. Well, she has it. Such a lesson in NATURE vs. NURTURE. I have made  a huge effort to be an example of bravery with pain ever since Isabella was born. Has. Not. Helped. She is deathly afraid of band-aids and will not allow one to touch her skin, no matter how cute and fun they may appear. We literally had to hold this child down the other day to put on a piece of gauze and some soft medical tape to cover a little wound she had. Our neighbors probably thought something awful was going on with her screaming the way she was! (I did make sure all the windows were closed before we even attempted said bandage application.) She kicked, she screamed, she cried, she begged and at one point she even sounded as if her body had been taken over by some evil force! We finally and successfully were able to get the bandage on. I held her on my lap until she stopped sobbing and then she realized that hey, that didn't hurt at all. Now she asks us to change the bandage (gauze) regularly and will even allow us to "decorate" the gauze with a band-aid - AS LONG AS THE BAND-AID DOES NOT TOUCH HER SKIN!!!! Baby steps. Baby steps. 

Showing off her "Owie Finger".

She is her Mother's Daughter after all and it is scary. My Mom just laughs and talks about "paybacks". I do feel REALLY bad for my Mom now after experiencing all of this from the other side. Sorry Mom!!! I feel bad for Alex since he gets to experience the drama as well as the arguing of "Me and Mini Me". 

I just can't help but love her a little more.