We're at the toddler part where Alice knows what we want and exactly what she can do to piss us off. You'll ask her to do something and she'll just stare at you with a blank look. But she knows. She knows. Of course as soon as you threaten to do something like end the meal or not take her waltzing she'll very quickly acquiesce. That shows that she not only understood your original request and how her behaviour deviated from it, but that she understood the threat as well and how to avoid it. I have no idea if this makes her typical or a prodigy of pushing parents past being pissed (ppppbp for short).
Even though most days I don't really feel like I've left childhood, I feel I don't really know how to talk to children. And now I have one of my own to deal with. So I'm going to avoid the whole situation and just talk to her like she's a rational adult. Well, I'll do that until it doesn't work. I'll try to lay out action / reaction situations and let her play a part.
I can also push for desired behaviour as well. If you want the food, toy, to be picked up, you say "please". You say "thank you". 'Cause that's how we do things here.
At this point I'm not delusional in thinking that I've got any mad parenting skillz, I recognize that we have a happy and compliant child. It's not me, it's her.
Now that I'm in a state where I no longer feel I can actually focus on my monitor, I'm going to bed and hope that this post somewhat makes sense. Hopefully. Perhaps. Ah, who am I kidding - it probably won't make sense to me if I re-read it tomorrow.
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