"No! That's your happy boice!"

Gretel is such a unique character. She is the funniest kid, Johnny and I say that all the time. She refuses to accept praise-she gets all sad and mopey if either of us looks at her and smiles, saying "good job!" when she has just finished saying the prayer (or other things she's done well).
It's really hard and unnatural not to praise a child! For a while she would slump her shoulders, and walk away. Then it turned into her slumping, clasping her hands together behind her back, while walking away. It was hilarious! She stopped doing that as much, and it turned into her putting one or two hands on her cheeks and making a major pouting face:




Now its evolved into her yelling, "NO! That's your happy boice!" We try to just praise her in a robot-type voice, and she likes that.

She loves playing games and watching cartoons on the ipad. The other day when she was watching a short cartoon on youtube, I told her that after it was finished, I needed her to turn it off and come downstairs to eat. While walking downstairs she said, "mom-when my movie ended, I wanted my finger to push another movie, but I didn't. I turned it off instead!" I thought this was so sweet, but I tried not to act enthused. I kind of casually said, "give me five" and held out my hand for her. She said, "No, I don't want to because it will hurt too much." I told her she could hit it as softly as she wanted. She got this really pitiful expression (like a sad kitty face) and barely slid her hand on mine.
She needs to be put into acting lessons! She is so dramatic and the faces she pulls are SO expressive. I can't help but laugh at her all day, which she hates. Also, lately at night when we read stories, she wants to act out every page. The most fun ones have been the Llama Llama books. (I'm mama llama and she's little llama) Story time takes quite a while when it turns into a full-on play, but it's fun!