Lately my life feels like a bad joke: A complainer, an arguer and a questioner walk into a bar…
Only the bar is my house and instead of walking in, they’re here ALL THE TIME (other than the complainer…but that’s not what this is about) and there’s no catchy ending that makes you giggle, though like many bad jokes, it often makes me cringe.
The Arguer: I’ve touched on this one before (see “Preschool Sassing”) but the backtalking has reached new levels of ridiculousness. Honeybun still believes she should have the last word in every situation. She has also added eye rolling and glaring to her repertoire. I’ve gotten to the point where when I give her a choice and she gets nasty about it, she gets nothing. Sometimes her choices are “this or nothing” and even after an attitude meltdown I would let her have whatever the choice was, not anymore! You argue, cry, fuss, scream, you get NOTHING and mommy walks away.
For example, yesterday after lunch she asked for dessert. I told her dessert is something we don’t get every day but she could have some fruit salad (with marshmallows, what’s better than that?!?!?!) She went hysterical “I don’t like the fruit salad! The coconut is nasty! I’m not going to eat it!” “Fine by me, then you get nothing.” More screaming and hysterics. 5 minutes later: “Ok, I’ll have fruit salad. But I’m only going to eat the cherries.” “No, I said you get nothing. If you are going to lose control of yourself then you lose your choice.” More hysterics. And off to nap she went!
The Questioner: Sugarplum is a very independent child. She loves to do things by herself (“Sugarplum DO IT!”), often refuses help and gets upset if you try to help without her permission (sometimes even after she’s given you permission). She is also becoming very curious and often asks “What that?” and the all-time mommy favorite “why?” She’s not a persistent why-er. She doesn’t ask why as a string of questions but it does come up often.
For example, this morning Sugarplum was climbing on the side of her bed and I told her no climbing. She turned around and asked “why?” while simultaneously falling and banging her leg on the way down. “Because you could get hurt.” Cue hysterical screaming and demanding of a Band-Aid. It took us nearly 20 minutes to recover. The other night she choked on some food because she was up running around. The next night at dinner hubby told her to sit down and she, of course, responded with “why?” “Remember when you choked last night because you were dancing around with food in your mouth? We sit on our bottom when we are eating.”
I truly believe we have very few rules in our house and those we do have are mostly safety and cleanliness related. I find it absolutely exhausting and irritating when they argue or question these simple rules. Our rules have been the same since the start so it’s not like the girls are not familiar with our expectations. I guess each is just in her own phase of figuring out the world and me!
