Bedtime Battles

Ellie has discovered sidewalk chalk. We bought some at Target today, along with a new spill-proof (yeah, right) bubble container and a watering can for when she wants to "help me mommy" with the flowers. I'm trying to find things to occupy her outside since that is where she wants to be lately. If we'd let her, I think she'd sleep in the backyard -- as long as the bugs all go inside first.

It was all I could do to get her back inside to take a toy-bath and get ready for bed. She asked for popcorn and had to "help me mommy" with it. "Cook it...push buttons", she said as she scooted her stool toward the microwave. How does she know these things? Someone must be tutoring her behind my back. She's sharp, this one. Like today when she head-butted me in the chin while I was trying to put her shoes on and when I said "Ouch!", she turned, rubbed my chin and said "much better". Glad I have someone to look out for me.

So, after toy-bath, we made popcorn. She was munching away, happily watching Dora and Diego for a while -- singing and repeating whatever that monkey of theirs was chattering about. Suddenly, she jumped up and dumped her few remaining popcorn kernels on the floor and began stomping the heck out of them. She had tried this before with a brownie and I guess she liked the result, so why not try a new medium? Now, I know she saw me sweeping the floor today, but I'm not convinced she cared. Here is how I handled it..bearing in mind all my years of studying child development:

Me: "Ellie, stop that!"
Ellie : (stomp, stomp, stomp!)
Me: "Stop that right now or you're going to bed!"
Ellie: (running now and throwing pieces she has picked up on the fly...oh, and laughing)
Me: (chasing her down, catching her by one arm, and dragging her kicking and spitting to the scene of the crime) "Now, you put all those pieces back in your bowl right now."
Ellie: "Wight Now!"
Me: "I mean it, Ellie. Pick them up."
Ellie: (fists clenched and behind her back...looking at floor)
So, as any reasonable adult would do, I took her little hand and tried to force her to pick them up. This doesn't work, by the way. She finally did pick up ONE kernel and when I said,"Now put it in the bowl" looked at me, dead in the eye, opened her fat little hand, and....DROPPED IT RIGHT BESIDE THE BOWL.

Score: Ellie-1, Mommy-0.

There really is something to be said about learning to pick your battles with a 2 year old. I'll clean up the rest later.















**More "Ellie-isms":
"charp" - a knife. Sharp.
"shake-shake" - sugar, Parmesan cheese, salt, etc. She'd love to have these all to herself.
"DeeeWord" - this is where MeeMouse, TeeBell, PeePan, Bumbo, Goo-kee and Tuto live. Tells me, "I wanna go dere, too!"
"Red" -- the answer for "what color is this?"

More later. :)

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