You know it…I can’t be the only one out there that has gone through it.  When my son was about 3 ½ years old it started…Whatever I did or gave him, it was “too hot, too cold, too tight, too loose, too big too small”. And it has now started, or shall I say PERFECTED by my daughter.

She has bawled over the wrong color shoes, or they weren’t “Spaaklee” enough.  Her cereal was too cold…(it was cold cereal with milk on it, but ice cream seems to never be too cold), her pants too loose, and her hair too long.  It always happens when she is tired or in a grumpy mood, so it isn’t all the time, but when she gets into her Goldilocks Groove, she goes for the gold!  She has asked for her hair up in Ponytails and after it is all done, she has cried because it wasn’t three ponytails. At dinner sometimes it is the wrong plate, wrong cup, wrong seat!  I don’t switch out the dishes to appease the blonde instigator. I tell her that she eats what I give her on whatever plate it lands on (some nights its whatever was closest to my hand when I opened the cupboard).  However, my son will move out of the seat she wants, give her the plate he has or toy he is playing with, just so she won’t throw a fit.  He wants to make her happy (a good husband some day).  He has whispered “Mom, just give her the plate” hoping that she won’t blow.

She has figured out how to work the system; and she does this daily in under 5.3 seconds flat!   I love her dearly. It’s fascinating to see what she will try.  I wonder if she will be a professional Lobbyist someday undertaking the most manipulative system of all.  But for now it’s just food, clothes, toys and what seat she wants to sit in. This ended with my son around 4 ½ and with a tear in my eye, this too shall pass.

~ Kathryn