by Kimberly Cohen

Created on: July 11, 2009

Rowdy children? I had two of them! Never mind that they're now in their teens and perfectly lovely. It's easy to forget those early years when I can now take them in public and have grown adults gush about their wonderful manners as they talk about the delightful conversation they just had with one of them. But I can assure you they were hellions growing up!

Early signs of future challenges came in the form of the little amount of sleep each child seemed to require. I remember after my first one, I lamented to my husband that it had been over a year since I had a full nights rest. Neither child slept during the day either! The baby books all talked about two long naps per day and I was lucky to get one short one. For my children, it was late to bed and early to rise. And those kids packed more into one day than anyone I know! They were constantly on the go. One example of a typical day occurred when my son was just about 3 years old. I took him shopping with me to the local mall and we were enjoying a slice of pizza when he suddenly bolted from his chair and began running down the mall. I quickly threw away what was left of dinner and ran in hot pursuit. His first stop was at a gift shop. He grabbed a handful of dried flowers and threw them into the mall with a delighted squeal, then took off again. I quickly picked up the flowers and put them back in their rightful place. I would have caught him too, had it not been for the basket that fell over as he dashed by! That too, I righted as I quickly apologized to the astonished shopkeeper. It took several minutes, but I finally caught the little rascal and we went home. I'm sure we had a talk about appropriate behavior in the mall and while that particular incident never happened again, it was always something.

I remember having many conversations with friends on the challenges of raising children. The general consensus was that if one child were difficult, the next one would be easier. In fact, the term used was "good baby" and "bad baby". Although I loved my son dearly, I was convinced that he was the "bad baby" and after 5 years, we finally got enough energy and courage to try for the "good baby". That's when I realized that my son was the good baby! It's hard to imagine, but my daughter was even more unmanageable. Again, there was a ton of energy. This child would get up in the middle of dinner and skip rope or roller skate around the house. She had plenty of daring too. I remember

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