CALGONE TAKE ME AWAY

So, Nora has been on an epic morning rage the last two mornings. Four days with her grandparents managed to turn her into a total maniac. Or maybe it's just what she's like now, and I'm searching around looking to place the blame on Jake's parents because it's easy to do. But whatever it is, jeez, I have had it with that kid.

She's just completely defiant. She won't do what she doesn't want to do, she thinks it's acceptable to say no to me (or to scream it), she argues and talks back at every turn, and she just digs her heels in further and further. Honestly, this kid has been pushing me to the brink since she was an infant and she hasn't stopped yet. At times it's even hard not to laugh, because she's trying to use adult ways of arguing in a way she doesn't quite understand yet. I'll tell her I've had enough and I won't tolerate any arguments. "But Mom," she whines, "That's not the point!"

I wasn't laughing, though, when she went nuts at school and hauled off and hit me this morning. She hasn't done anything like that in a year or more.

Mornings are the hardest because I can't defuse the situation by separating us and putting her in her room to cool down. Instead, we are forced together because we must get dressed and out the door and to school. And the problem is, when a punishment is imposed for her hideously bad behavior, that's not the end of it. She'll argue it. And argue it. And argue it and argue it and argue it and argue it. Seriously, if I didn't physically remove myself from her presence, I think she would argue it all day long. Where the hell did this kid come from? And it's not like I argue back or respond or ever change my mind. I don't. I don't acquiesce to her arguments, ever. All the parenting books tell you that you need to be consistent and not back down and they'll learn to respect those boundaries. Those books have never met Nora.

I was never allowed to talk back to my parents. That resulted in things like writing "I will not talk back to my mother" 50 times. But Nora is too young to write lines. And oddly enough, despite me informing her that talking back to her parents is not done, she still seems to think this is acceptable. Where does she get this kind of defiance? Honestly. We are not a spanking family, so all I can think to do is put her in her room until she's willing to drop it. But again, that doesn't work when you're in the car on the way to school.

All I can do is reflect back on how, at least things are better now than they were a year ago. The meltdowns happen, but they last 10 minutes instead of 3 hours. She is capable of internally defusing now, and can change her mood in a few minutes, whereas when she was 2 and 3 she couldn't do that and seemed trapped in a cycle of continuous escalation that would literally last for several hours. (Of hell.)

The thing is, I am not an easygoing, lax parent. We have boundaries and standards and rules and I'd say I'm probably more strict than pretty much any of my peers. Pretty much all of my friends let their kids do stuff that I don't let my kids do. Having two very temperamentally different children has taught me how important temperament is in contrast to parenting behaviors. They both matter, but I never realized how is driven by temperament.