Defiance

It wasn't until I was a parent that I heard that the "terrible two's" aren't that terrible. It's the Three's that are rough. Rough? That may be an understatement. Riley. That girl. She's rounding the corner to three and she just gets more wild by the day. She is too smart. If I ask her a direct question, she will go into this secret language where she shouts weird made-up words like "hootie" or "toca." She knows exactly what she is doing when she ignores me. Here's one odd-ball example: we went on a boat in Alaska and she would not tell Robby or I which animals we saw that day. The next morning she met my friends niece on FaceTime and when their family asked if she saw any Alaskan wildlife, she simply said "Yeah, Whales, Puffins, Orcas..." She is unbelievably defiant. I have tried disciplining her with soap and she says "more soap please" when I take it out of her mouth. I tried taking her favorite toys away. Her response to that was to push Ava, look at me, then hand me her favorite toy. Attempts at Time-outs of all kinds? She requests them. She'll do something naughty, then look up at me, tilt her head and say "Time out please." Take away her iPad, no problem, she'll find something else to entertain herself. Smack her hand, she'll say "do it again!" Or she'll whack our hand back. Listening and following directions is not her forte. 

While I am on the subject of how curious this little creature is, let me also note a few of the things she has asked for in the middle of the night. And I really mean the middle. These are 2 AM requests. Cheese samples, for the tags in her pj's to be cut out, for her nails to be cut. And of course the standards - a soft blanket followed by a not soft or "cold" blanket as she refers to it, ice water (it must have ice), a specific stuffed animal that she has not played with or shown any interest in for months. These are just some of her nightly requests. Anything to get us back in to her room for some social time in the odd hours of the night. This girl is crazy.