The most frightening moment as a parent......so far

I had my most frightening moment as a parent this weekend (so far). Was it when Brady fell off the kitchen bar stool (again) and we think he may have broken his nose? Sadly, no. Was it Friday morning thinking Kaylee might have the swine flu? Nope. (and it turned out to be a sinus/ear infection, thank goodness).

Instead, it was the very moment that I realized my five year old daughter figured out that there are limits to what we can do to get her to do what she's SUPPOSED to do. She is waaaaaaay to young to know that she can withstand physical torture in the name of getting what she wants. She is too young to have figured out that, unless we install restraints, there's really no way we can keep her in bed when he have banished her to it for being a turd.

She is too small to know that, no matter what we say or do, her physical presence has grown enough that she can, in fact, fight back. OMIGOD. Needless to say, this was a difficult weekend. I was a man down and she knew it. (for those of you not in the small town gossip loop, Mark took preventative measures - ahem, snip snip, ahem - last week so we won't be having more children, and after this weekend......... he's like a God to me)

I kind of assumed that she would come to this realization, I dunno, sometime in her teens. I figured I had a good nine or ten years of maintaining some sort of control. Wait.....I think I hear my mother laughing in Boise right now.....stop it Mom!!

Let me tell ya, it is a VERY scary thing when you've tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, save for things that CPS would frown on, to get your kid to A) eat her goddamn dinner; B) stop smacking her brother around; C)get her f--king clothes on for school and; D) (my personal favorite) do something you've asked her to do by least the third, if not second time, you've asked. Is that asking too much?

I did recognize a pattern of behavior though (and this is where I KNOW my Mom is laughing so hard she might pee a little) that she wants to have control over the house, her choices, and quite frankly our whole family. Which is really really unfortunate, because I am the one who wants to have control. So it's a battle of wills my peeps, and guess what? This weekend, it was a freaking DRAW.

Next time, chalk one up to MOM. I'm going to buy some restraints for her bed today. Oh, and turning the lock on her door around.