The Beast...

Oh my god...my daughter has given me a run for my money this week.

The oppositional-defiance of a two year old is maddening. Right when you think you have it figured out they go and switch on you. I say sit down, she stands up. I say get dressed, she runs off tearing her diaper off. Oh and yes, diapers. We are trying to potty train but my lord that child is determined to control that as well. You would think with potty training that you'd go through LESS diapers but that is not the case here. By last count we went through 15 diapers today. 15!!! The slightest wetness and she tears it off and throws it away...but do you think I could get her to go to potty on the toilet BEFORE going in her diaper? Heavens no. That would mean that she'd have to agree with me and that is just not even an option right now. Everything is a battle and frankly...I'm exhausted.

Today after an extremely challenging morning I turned to a trusted "friend"...the book Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Dr. Becky Bailey. (www.consciousdiscipline.com) She is truly an amazing source of information and I would highly recommend her wisdom to anyone who is a parent or works with kids in any shape or form. I quickly read the "ages and stages" section in the hope that I would find something...anything that could help as I was running low on patience and my sweet Sienna was not showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon.

I then lay down and took a 2 hour nap which felt heavenly.

Some time later I woke up to quiet breathing on my face.

Sienna: (said in a low whisper) "Mommy, are you in there?"
Mommy: (nothing--I decided to play this one a bit so I laid there with my eyes shut in silence)
Sienna: "Mommy, I wuv you."
Mommy: (nothing...but I allowed a smile to spread on my face)
Sienna: "Mommy, I'm not hurtfuw, I try be helpfuw...I wuv you. Oh, and I go pee pee on the carpet."
*Note: At this point my eyes snapped wide open and I sat straight up in bed.
Mommy: "Sienna, you go potty in the toilet! Where did you pee on the carpet?"
Sienna: (said with a mischievous grin on her face) "I'm just kidding...I no go pee pee on the carpet...I'm a big girl!"
Then she ran off and all I could see was her naked butt as she flew out of the bedroom. I was left thinking, "Hmmm...I know I put her to bed with a diaper on..."

So what exactly is my plan to deal with my beastly daughter?

To keep trying. To keep teaching her exactly how to act in a helpful way. To keep talking to her. To keep saying everything at least 2,000 times in the hopes that she will one day internalize it and use it. And to keep taking a lot of deep breaths so that I can remain calm and in control of my own upset. Because truly it is very difficult to remember to discipline myself first before I can even think of trying to discipline her.

And what do you think I was thankful for today?

Her humor. I know it must be tough on her, as well, to have so much to learn and to constantly have her world morph before her eyes. I do believe that kids are constantly searching out boundaries to exist between and her boundaries seem to change daily as she moves along her developmental continuum. So I am thankful that despite all of this "change" she is still able to come up with something funny inside of it all.

I was also hopeful that she was in fact kidding and that I wouldn't find a surprise on the carpet somewhere...