One...Two...Three...

Oh! The joys of being a parent! While we love our girls to death and would die for them in a heartbeat, we sometimes find ourselves wanting to kill them! Tori not so much, but that Miko! Boy, can she work your nerves!

Of course we kid, we would never kill our daughters, but sometimes we find ourselves having to walk away and count and breath slowly, or have the other parent take over for a little while. We have a motto that we try to live by: pick and choose your battles. We try to let the little things roll and pay more attention to the bigger, more dangerous ones, but we also try to set boundaries so the girls won't run wild as they get older.

We try not to spank when disciplining Miko, but sometimes a quick swat on her overly-padded, cloth-diapered butt seems to get her attention, and she cries for all of two seconds. Time outs don't seem to work too well unless we stand right there with her to make sure she doesn't move from the spot, which then she just looks at us and laughs the whole time. Redirecting works, to a point. As soon as she's bored with whatever the redirection was, she's back to doing the thing she was redirected from in the first place. It can be so frustrating at times. Last night we found that if we tell her that she has until the count of five to do something, we get to about the number three, then she runs to do it. We have to have a stern and commanding voice, and repeat the command when we get to the count of three, but so far it seems to be working.

Tonight, Chad told Miko to stop playing in the furkids' water dish (something she does on a constant basis). She didn't, so he proceeded with, "I'll give you until the count of five, then you're getting spanked. One...two...three. Stop playing in the water!" Well, she smiled a goofy grin at him, and he started laughing, which got her laughing as well. Now, how can you go and swat the bottom of a little girl that's so cute and melts your heart when she smiles at you? You can't, really. So, Chad got up and picked up the water dish and told her that she was "bad"...but he did it with a smile...so, she grabbed his pant leg and said, "Hug. Hug." Awwww! It was so sweet...but the moment of "proper disciplinary action" had came and went.

Luckily, we know how to just let things roll...