Life With a Three-Year-Old

I didn't realize life with a three-year-old would be so difficult! As I told the principal of the school she will attend next year (yes, she will start big girl school in August), my daughter is very independent, very persistent, and very assertive. I choose to use those words instead of saying bossy and stubborn! I think her personality will get her anything she wants in life, but we really struggle with her understanding that mommy and daddy know what's best for her right now! She's not old enough to be in charge of our family and make her own decisions. I just feel that there's a fine line between disciplining to get her to obey and breaking her spirit. Josh seems to want to break her so that she's a perfect, obedient child. I don't think that's possible. I think that we could beat her black and blue (not that we do!) and she would still be independent and assertive, she would just resent us for what we are doing to her. I want her to understand why she has to obey and why she can't do certain things.

Here's what happened this week: Josh read LilyAnn a story and we put her to bed. Josh and I went to bed to watch TV. All the sudden, I heard the bathtub water running. We went to see why the water was running and there is LilyAnn with dark red fingernail polish all over her feet, ankles, up her legs, on her stomach, fingers, and some on her chest. She said, "I can't get it off!" The first objective was to find the fingernail polish bottle and make sure it wasn't spilling all over the carpet or bed. After she realized we were pretty upset, she told us where she had hid the bottle and, thankfully, it was closed. We took her to the bathroom and set her on the counter to begin the process of removing all the polish. Josh was getting mad and asked her what would possess her to paint her own nails and body. She started crying and said, "I just wanted to be beautiful." We said, "Baby, you are beautiful without nail polish, or makeup, or anything!" She said, "No, I'm not!" It broke my heart! She's three and thinks she's not pretty enough!

So we took all the polish off. As we were finishing, I noticed she was breaking out in a rash all over her stomach and down her legs. So I gave her a little Benadryl and we put her back in bed. The next morning, I woke up to the sound of her in the bathroom again. I got up to see what she was doing. She had pulled out the drawers, climbed onto the counter top, gotten the Benadryl, and given herself some! First of all, I didn't think she could reach it all the way up by the sink. Second of all, I thought children's Benadryl would have a child-proof lid! It didn't! So I had to figure out how much she had given herself. She kept insisting that she had only given herself about 1 tsp. I asked her several times to show me on the measuring spoon how much she had taken and she always pointed to that spot. But then we had to explain why she can't just be giving herself medicine. Needless to say, after a teaspoon of Benadryl, she was very subdued all morning when we went down to see the Easter bunny at dad's bank!