My husband got tired of our daughter kicking him under the table at a restaurant so he warned her and then kicked her back. She looked at him and said "you think that's funny?" LOL!!

This morning we told her she needed to brush her teeth before she could watch TV and she quickly agreed. "OK, that's easy, I can do that!" and off she went! Yeah!

Oh Boy...

Yesterday I was walking the little puppy around the cul-de-sac when I saw Jorja walking across the street to join me. No Daddy anywhere so I asked her if Daddy knew she was out walking with me. She said 'no.' Uh-oh. As we started to walk back to the house I noticed the other two dogs loose in the front yard. Jorja said 'oops.' By now I'm rather unhappy. Luckily one of the dogs was happy to see me and ran right up to me. One down, one to go. The other one didn't realize I was there until I was very close so he just made a dash for the back yard. Disaster averted.

My husband and I sat her down to have a little chat - again - about safety issues. I don't know how to better explain it to her than to say "what if a stranger had found you before I did?" And did she look when she crossed the street? I doubt it. She simply assumes, as children do, that nothing bad ever happens to them. Why should it? It hasn't ever happened yet, right? How do you explain to a child that it only takes once to have something horrible happen??

Puppy!

I volunteer as a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs of the Desert and yesterday we brought home a new puppy to raise. My daughter fell in love with him immediately, of course! This morning he would chase her up and down the concrete patio by the side of our house. She loved having a puppy follow her around everywhere she went. She ran to the house and brought out several toys for him - such a good little mother! The first three pups I brought home were all older because I didn't want to be potty training them while my daughter was potty training. Now that she's reliable we have moved on to this eight-week-old. Maybe I can train our daughter to take him potty in the middle of the night... JK!

I've Been Snookered!

Yesterday after kindergarten my daughter's teach pulled me aside to let me know that Jorja was having an issue. Apparently she is now treating the teacher the way she treats us. She is told something but she pretends to not hear. We assume she's so engrossed in her world that we need ot get her attention and tell her again. Her teacher, however, made sure to let us know that our daughter hears everything just fine - she just chooses to ignore us! Argh! Little stinker! I talked to her day care provider and was informed that my daughter tries it over there as well; then gave me a tip: assume she hears everything. Duh, huh? So we tell her once and then if she ignores us we go over to her and ask her to repeat what we said. Even if she plays dumb, keep asking. Pretty quick she tells us exactly what we said! So go get it done, child! The teacher sends home little smiley faces each day the kids have been good. If my darling daughter misbehaves she simply won't get a smiley face. The teacher suggested a reward system for how many smiley faces she can get. You know, collect five and get a toy or something. My first thought was to take away privileges when she didn't bring home a smiley face but we'll give this a shot. I'm thinking she needs to collect five and then we can go to Target and pick out a top or something off the clearance rack as a reward. You can get stuff off that rack for $1.29 sometimes. We haven't told her this yet but we should probably get our act in gear. She's on the year-round school schedule, though, so she's done the end of this month for a month. Maybe we can start then...

Every Wednesday I pick her up from day care and take her to dance class. When I show up at the day care place, I hand her her bag with her dance outfit and ask her to go get changed so we can go. Well, yesterday she just played and dawdled. After twenty minutes had passed I was getting a bit miffed so I started muttering to the caregiver. I told the caregiver that if my daughter took half an hour I would just head home. We would be late for class by then and maybe she would learn a lesson. Sure enough! She took a full half hour to get changed! I just loaded her up and headed out. She didn't figure out what had happened until we got parked in the garage at home! She tried to refuse to come in but I turned out the light in the garage and she changed her mind pretty quickly.

Today went MUCH better! She got ready for gym class quickly and after supper she immediately went to get ready for swim class - and did it quickly! I'm crossing my fingers that maybe I've got this one handled but I'm pretty sure she's thinking about something else to try...

Too Much?

My daughter is currently enrolled in Kindergarten, gym class, tap dancing class and swim lessons. My dilemma is which class to drop. The swim classes are for two weeks but my husband wants to keep her in lessons so that leaves tap and gym. She's loving gym class quite a lot. I'm leaning toward dropping tap class because she's not real lively. She loves the cute dance outfits but that's not enough to keep her in class. Seems like an easy answer but the last time I tried to drop dance class there was quite a show. So now I'm back to 'improve or drop.' Grrrr... I reread that and feel like I'm being walked on by my four-year-old. I guess it has something to do with making sure she has all the chances I didn't as a kid. If she wants to learn something I will find a way to get her taught!

Tonight she had a meltdown because she can't find her favorite blanket. I have told her many times in the past to make sure she knows where it is so tonight I simply told her it isn't my problem and she can sleep without it tonight and look for it tomorrow. Probably doesn't make up for the wishy-washy decision on the tap dancing class but it felt nice to know my foot was down on that one.