There's a new sheriff in town. She stands about 3'3" and has long, soft, brown hair - usually worn in 2 braids or ponytails and is almost 3. She adores Hello Kitty and can often be found wandering around with her second in command, "Blankie." Shortly after she started walking, she found that she could clear off the coffee table with one sweep of her arms when she was upset. Now that she is older (and wiser?), she screams or stomps her feet and more recently, she has begun to throw things.
Rolled into this delightful little package, who mimics her older sister faster than reruns of Seinfeld hit syndication, is a splash of attitude and even cunning. She has become, by accident or design, a master manipulator. Or at the very least, is working on it.
This morning, I asked her to stop kicking something on her dresser where the changing table is. Her response of "it's mine" led to a discussion that although the Hello Kitty humidifier is in her room, it is not "hers" because I bought it. (Yes, there should be more than a few of you out there shaking your heads because you have either had this very same conversation with your own children, or your parents had it with you.) As we walked out of her room and headed downstairs, she continued to say "it's mine" and I continued to say "no it is not."
In the kitchen, finishing up getting ready for school, we started to put breakfast together. She asked me for something and I said "no." Her response? "But it's mine." I immediately said (in a stern, "mommy is serious" type voice) "I don't ever want to hear that 'it's mine' stuff again." About 30 seconds later, I look down and she has her head bowed with her hands over her eyes. Quiet sniffling sounds waft their way up to my ears and I ask her if she is crying. After she says "no," she adds "I'm sad." (This is also a recent tactic of hers, to tell me that she is sad or that I made her sad after she has gotten in trouble for something.) When I asked her why she was sad, she had a response, which I can't remember now but will hopefully remember at some point today and will update this.
With her morning cup of milk and some redirection, the sadness over being told that she cannot use the "it's mine" phrase any more had disappeared. We finished getting ready for school (Hello Kitty socks, shoes and all) and headed out the door. Another morning in the books.
I have to laugh (or at the very least, smile somewhat ironically) that my second child is already such a manipulator at the young age of 1-month-shy-of-3-years-old. You may laugh and think that I am making this up, but she really does manipulate. Which means that Daddy and I have to stay on our toes to keep up. Of course, for as much as we struggle with B, she is a transparent as the day is long. She has difficultly keeping secrets (good or bad ones) and usually schemes about ways to get friends to participate in plays, rather than ways to get away with something or dupe Mommy or Daddy. So things with the little one will be even more interesting as they get older.
In the meantime, I'll just keep telling her that if my money paid for it, it's not hers, it's Mine!
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