Dealing with 3 year olds

Well you may have noticed that I have not been blogging too much lately. Wonder why my 3 readers? Well it is due to my lovely 3 year old daughter. She is driving everyone in the family insane and pushing every limit or boundary. We are trying to find any method or discipline that works with her because so far obviously nothing has worked. We are at our wits end!

Funny how two kids from the same parents can be soo different! My son has the usual "stay in bed" issues or "keep your hands to yourself" thing but never has he pulled an all out tantrum when you say no or remove him from a situation, say like the park. You know the Mom you see pulling their screaming child across the park to their car?? Yup that would be me. I have no idea how we got here really...we used the same discipline with both kids and I fear that may the root of our problems.

We use the ever so popular "naughty corner" with both children and it clearly has a greater effect on my son than my daughter. He is a very sensitive guy and gets when you are angry and changes his behaviour accordingly. My daughter tho? You don't even need to tell her now...she knows when she is going to the naughty corner and quite happily will stroll to the corner after what she KNOWS was she has done was bad. She will stand there and talk to herself and when you come over she will flash a BIG smile and say "I'm sorry Mommy...I'm sorry" and we have the "sorry is not enough" speech and make her go apologize, mainly to my son. I have resorted to spanking her because I have no other avenues left to try (I had thought) but even that doesn't seem to be working. Yeah she cries and knows we are mad but she just gets MADDER and throws mini-fits in the corner. Where did this child COME from? Surely not from ME!!!

So my Mom watches them both 1-2 times a week and is having the same issues. My daughter will throw fits when leaving the park, McDonald's, anywhere she is having a good time with other kids. We DO give her the "10 mins.....5 mins" countdown to when we will be going so she is getting the cues as to when we are leaving. My Mom has always maintained that neither my sister or I EVER gave her this kind of trouble and she is NOT a woman who likes public attention especially from bad behaviour. People would rave to her how well behaved my sis and I were so this is a polar opposite and she does NOT like it. She told me a few days ago that she does not know if she can watch the kids anymore because it has not turned out the way she thought it would be...she does not want to be the disciplinarian, she wants to be a Nana. I totally get that it is a VERY hard job esp for a 60+ adult. Hell I can't handle it at 36!! I don't know what we would do without her...she comes to our house and takes care of the kids for FREE. Where are we going to find someone who would do that? Wonderland?

So the last time she had my kids, my daughter right on cue, threw a fit when leaving a water park after MUCH warning. So she took matters in her own hands and told her that she was not going to be playing at the playarea in McDonalds now....she was going to have to sit and watch her brother play instead. She told me this on the phone as they were driving to McDonalds and I was thinking "OMG Mom....she is going to pitch a fit like no other and that will be the END of you watching the kids..kaput!"

So all day at work I was wondering what happened at McDonalds. I was sure that my daughter threw the biggest hissy fit and they all were admitted to the nearest loonie bin where I would be picking them up after work. But no....that is not what happened. My Mom had told her that she would not be playing today and she would have to watch. They ate their lunch and you know what that clever girl said "I am really HAPPY Nannie!"... hehe, I remember doing stuff like that, hoping that they had forgotten what you had done and let you go play. But no, she made her sit and watch and she was.......FINE. I mean she was sad and was going "boo hoo hoo" and then slowly turning around and looking at the kids and then going back to her boo hoo's at the table. She KNEW she had been bad and was being punished!! OMG...a BREAKTHROUGH!!

We are still plugging through day to day with her but she does seem to "get" things a bit more. She IS a different personality from my son and will have to be dealt with differently as well. She can switch from Jekyll to Hyde in the blink of an eye and you have to change YOUR frame of mind from "happy Mommy" to "She-Ra Queen of all discipline" just as fast. DH and I are just exhausted at the end of a day with both kids. Parenting truly is the hardest job I have ever taken on. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but clearly I had not the faintest idea. Thank the lord above the good moments seem to outweigh the bad moments...for now.