"Am I a nice girl?"

Ever since Chad and I returned from a week long vacation last Wednesday, we've been in kid-reprogram mode. Back to working on weening Jett from his nuk, back to getting Abby to listen the first time...

Jett's been ok, but Abby's been quite the handful. Lots of time outs, lots of discussions, little patience on Mommy and Daddy's part...we even missed ECFE (which she LOVES, and we haven't been to for a month due to weather/vacation) Tuesday night because she refused to eat her supper. I thought that was tough (it really broke her heart not to go) and that maaaaybe she was starting to understand the need to listen and that we had reached the peak of the problems.

Then Wednesday night happened.

Let me first say that my kids were AMAZING all day on Wednesday. We took a trip to Alex, shopped at Target AND Walmart, and I didn't feel the need to throw my arms up in surrender, leave a full cart behind, and high-tail it to the car with two screaming toddlers. Nope... my kiddos were awesome. They listened, squirmed very little, a got along fantastically almost the whole time.

But Wednesday night was a whole different story for little Abby Jo. We went to the basketball games up at UMM... made it to the second half of the girls game and planned to stay through the first half of the boys game. As soon as we walked in the doors to the gym, Abby's ears turned off. One of her best friends was there, so I figured it had more to do with the atmosphere, but just got worse and worse as the night progressed. My tipping point was when I brought Abby and her friend to the potty during the first half of the boys' game. She was done doing her stuff, and I went in the bathroom to help wipe, and the craziest freak out I've seen ensued. I mean, she was just crazy! "I'm not done, I want to lock the door, then you come in, don't wipe, I'm done, don't wipe, get out, I want to lock the door, I need to wash my hands..." please hear the high pitched, inperceivable, toddler crying/screaming in this statement of pure craziness.

So, I did something I very rarely do and spanked Abby on her bare butt. It brought her back to reality, led to quite a few tears, but, of course, did not improve her listening skills for the night, and shortly after we headed on home.

I was extremely frustrated. We pulled in the driveway, and Abby started putting up a fight again. I raised my voice with her & was very firm, which quieted her down... but as I went to carry her out of the car, she looked at me and said, "Mommy, I'm not naughty."

Oh man... thinking on the last few hours of the night, I wanted to clarify this for her and speak totally out of emotion. But, Jett was half asleep in his seat and I didn't want to wake him. So, I told her she had not been a good listener, which was very naughty, but that we would talk about it after I put her brother to bed.

After tucking Jett in bed and battling Abby to put on her pajamas (seriously, longest night ever!), I put her on my lap and held her close and gave her the no nonsense tone of voice, complete with eye contact:

"Abby, you are not a naughty girl, you are a good girl, and Mommy loves you very, very much. But, some of the things you did tonight were naughty things, like when you didn't listen..."

We talked about being a good girl, and what it meant to listen, and Abby really seemed to get it. It was a good way to end a long day. Then, as I was tucking her in and turning on her night light, Abby, with tears in her eyes, asked, "Mommy, am I a nice girl?"

Oh my sweet Abby Jo. Talk about a heartbreaker. I had never been so glad that I had followed the prompting in my heart, put my exhaustion and frustrations to the side, and talked with Abby about how she was a good girl, but her actions were naughty. Also, I was so thankful that Abby had actually let me hold her and listened quietly while we were talking, especially after four hours of not listening to anything anyone said! It made it a lot easier to answer her without worrying about contradicting anything I had said earlier. It was really nice to end the night with, "Yes, you are a very nice girl, Sweetheart, and I love you very much" which was received with a nod & smile from my little girl.

What a wonderful Wednesday it was, afterall.