Parenting 101

I think all parents should be required to take this. EVERY YEAR. They could go over topics such as, "Getting Your 3-year old to eat vegetables," "How to convince a 3-year old to clean her room," and "How to get a 3-year old to go to bed at a reasonable hour with no screaming, fit-throwing, whining, crying, and copious amounts of Jack Daniels 100-year old whiskey." Okay, so maybe that last part wouldn't be a good idea, but I'll bet a lot of people would attend.

I put Jenna to bed at eight o'clock. I think that's a great time for a small human to go to bed, but apparently, she disagrees. After one hour of walking her back into her room without saying a word ala "SuperNanny," I just couldn't take it anymore. HOW this works on SuperNanny so perfectly is beyond me. When I walk my child back into her room THIRTY-SEVEN TIMES, it doesn't phase her in the least. It's like she thrives on that attention, of me walking her back to her room, so it backfires. Every time I'd hear her out of bed, I'd find her in the hallway, dancing. She'd be standing there, legs apart, arms up (think "chicken dance"), shaking her butt. As soon as she'd see me, she'd stop shaking, run into her room, and leap into her bed.

The 38th time I walked her back into her room, I smacked her on the ass, just for good measure. After she got out of bed the 39th time, I took away all her movies. After the 40th time, I got out the baby gate, which led to screaming and crying and "No, Mommy! I'll listen!" (suuuurrrreee you will.) After that, I sat at the table and threw the ball into her dad's court. After 5 minutes in the room with her, she's quiet.

BECAUSE HE'S LAYING DOWN WITH HER.

Nothing like just wiping out all that hard work of walking back and forth 40 times to get her to go to bed without one of us lying down.