A Little Test. Oh, and the Fish Dies Again.

Reddy #2 died. Full disclosure to Lily, who flushed him herself and agreed to adopt Sam’s dramatic looking swordtail, which he agreed to if he was allowed to help name it. So, Lightening, who’s been alive in the tank for nearly a week now, becomes Lily’s special fish. He’ll probably be belly-up tomorrow.

So bedtime rolled around with excruciating slowness after a very long day. Lily’s been making bedtime a thing of misery and threats for weeks now, and tonight was no different. Brush your teeth or no nappy (her word for nursing, which she still likes to do at night) and no books, straight to bed.
Lily begrudgingly brushes teeth.
Now let me brush your teeth or no nappy and no books.
Refusal.
Do you want nappy and books?
Massive pout. Then she sees the roll of toilet paper–she’s sitting on the closed toilet next to the sink–and starts to spin it.
Touch it again and no nappy, no books.
She spins it with her foot.
Not with your foot, either. Touch it with your foot and it’s straight to bed.
She looks at me. She smiles. She reaches out her foot.

So, straight to bed. No nappy, no books. The howling was amazing. I sat down, turned my back on her, and waited. I will listen to you, I will!
Good, you can listen to me tomorrow, but now you’re going straight to bed.
We had that exchange several times. She tried to get up. I told her I wouldn’t sit with her if she got up again. After about ten minutes of howling, she started to fall asleep, then wake up, sobbing for me in her sleep. I want you mommy, I won’t mommy, I don’t want this,

Man, it was hard.

But she was checking to see if it would really happen, and it did.


806 Responses to “A Little Test. Oh, and the Fish Dies Again.”

  1. chelle says:

    ugh! Testing toddlers!!!! I tell ya, it is so hard to hold ground! You did good!

  2. JK says:

    Little girls who test their limits… Could be the name of a book, eh?