Outsmarted

In some of my more "on" parenting moments, I have come up with solutions to problems (or borrowed them) that have worked for me and J. But I underestimated J and these "solutions" have come back to bite me in the ass.

For example, when J is having a crying fit, I tell her just to take a deep breath and calm down. She does - she takes an exaggerated breath and stops crying. This has worked AMAZINGLY, if I can toot my own horn for a moment, and has stopped full blown tantrums in their tracks.

Then this morning, I wanted to go down the street for breakfast and was trying to get J to go to the bathroom before we went. She was dancing around, singing "no, no, no" (one of her favorites) so I pretended to be really sad. I stuck out my lip, hunched my shoulders, etc. J looked at me and told me to "take a deep breath." I did, knowing I had backed myself into a corner here, and J said "see now you aren't sad" and continued to refuse to go to the bathroom. My own trick used against me by a 2 year old.

She does this with "kiss it and make it better" too. We were playing on the floor and she wanted me to sit in the middle of the room but I was tired and wanted to lean against something. I told her my back hurt so I couldn't sit where she wanted me to. She came over kissed me on the back and said "there all better" and pointed to the spot in the middle of the floor. Again, bested by a 2 year old.

Needless to say it has been a long weekend of The Jimmies (a kids rock band), trying to see Obama (waaaayyyyyy cold), trying to find The Lion King on dvd (damn you Best Buy of Cherry Hill!!!!), purchasing a fire extinguisher (trying to be safety town), and dinner with L, D, and Baby E (fun and a reminder that we are so not in college anymore).

Oh and the stupid kids CD J has insisted on listening two for the last, oh, 9 weeks or so, is stuck in the dvd player of my car. I didn't find this out until the stupid Best Buy did not have the Lion King dvd, so we compromised and got the soundtrack (because it really was about Hakunna Matta) which I said we could listen to in the car. J took the news of the broken CD player well, but it meant MORE OF THAT SAME DAMN CD until I figure out what is going on. ARGGGHHH!!