November 2025 update: all posts in this series now have enhanced semantic navigation. You can browse all related posts in this specific topic and even have a hub page, from where you can see all of them.

Today is Bianca’s 4th birthday. All my love is with her and it will always be. Following a tradition started 4 years ago, on her first anniversary, I’ll post the 7 lessons I learned from her in the last year.

1. Show Off Your Personality

Every time we go out she surprises us by starting conversations out of the blue with people around. Sometimes it’s the waiter who gets the first line, sometimes it’s just a person walking by who instantly receive a “Hi, I’m Bianca” greeting. Every time we’re in a public place she is relaxed and treats people like they are her own pairs. And I admit that’s such a great lesson, at least for me. People are our own pairs. But our expectations are so narrow and low that we forget that and treat people like assets. Or like enemies. Such a waste of time!

2. If You Don’t Get It For The First Time, Keep Trying

Since she started to talk and to express her needs, things have changed dramatically for us. And for her. She’s asking things for herself and she does that with persistence. Sometimes it’s a toy, sometimes it’s something to eat and most of the time it’s just our presence and time. But if, for whatever reason, we can’t deliver,  she keeps trying. And keeps trying. And keeps trying again. If there’s one word which dramatically changed its meaning since we have Bianca in our lives, that word would be “persistence”.

3. Watch Until You Learn

I noticed that she wants to watch the same movie again and again. At first, I didn’t agree, for the sake of diversity. But if you’ve read number 2 above, you already know that at some point I had to give in. And I was right to do so. She watches movies until she learns them by heart. She never stops, never loses focus, never get bored. Sometimes I wish I have the same focus power, just to be able to immerse myself in whatever thing I’m doing, the same way she’s doing it. I think she learned tremendously just by watching around, fully focused.

4. Habits Are The Easiest Thing

With socializing at the kindergarten came also the effort of waking up early in the morning each day. But I was amazed by how fast she was able to adapt to the new schedule. She started to wake up at 6:30 AM and to go to bed at 7:30 PM in about a week. A huge role in this habit creation played Diana, of course, who actually shaped this habit for her, but once she learned it, she’s using it on autopilot. Every time I want to start a new habit, I’m thinking how easy it is for a child to ignite one. Somehow, we seem to lose that flexibility over the years.

5. Stay With The Problem Until You Find The Solution

Last year, she started kindergarten at an English school (she is born Romanian and still live in Romania). She had a short experience before at another English kindergarten but not at such a higher level: more kids, bigger space, extremely diverse schedule. She had a slow start, but now she’s really ok. In fact, her half-year reports from the teacher surprised both of us in term of progress and evolution. Seeing her everyday didn’t help us to understand how much she grew up. That’s one of the biggest lessons I learned from her: stay there and do you job.

6. Don’t Fake It

Every once in a while she tries to fake it until she gets it. She fakes crying for a toy, or something like this. Well, she doesn’t get it. Every now and then she still tries though, just to check in, I suppose. Faking until you get it it’s a stupid thing. Many so called Law Of Attraction gurus are giving this advice: pretend like you’re already rich. Well, it’s big difference between “pretend” and “act”. Every time Bianca is authentic she gets everything she asks for. The moment she starts to fake it, the Universe (meaning us, at this age) closes his gates and nothing gets out anymore.

7. You Cannot Have Enough Laughter In Your Life

Every situation can be – and most of the time is – a reason for laughing. We laugh at the weather, we laugh at chairs or at tables, we laugh at dogs and cats, we laugh at each other. I don’t think I laughed so much in my entire life. During last year I rediscovered the value of laughing as a normal reaction to stuff. Grown ups are taking things way too seriously. And the saddest part is that not all of them have a kid around to show them how stupid is to worry, or to take things for much more than they really are: just things. That you can laugh at, if you choose to.