A war is being waged.....

I am not a mean person. At least I do not think I am. However, I have come to a point in my life where I am unwilling to put up with the crap. I can’t stand “attitude.” And in my life, the queen of dishing out crap loaded with a healthy dose of attitude is my daughter Sophie. She is barely four years old, and already the attitude…the pure contempt….oozing from her is amazing. It’s a sight to behold. She has moments when she is defiant to her very core. I can’t even begin to fathom what she will be like when she is fourteen years old if I am barely able to stand it now. The thought of her at fourteen is the exact reason that I feel a need to stop her in her tracks when the attitude starts flowing. We need to nip this in the bud now or we will be dealing with an uncontrollable tornadic whirlwind of sarcasm, contempt, and defiance in a few short years.

Ruanita agrees completely that we should not put up with Sophie’s negative attitude. However, she has a little more trouble getting on the bandwagon when it comes to actually taking steps to discipline Sophie. Sophie has cast a magic spell over Ruanita. She has her other mom wrapped around her tiny pink finger. All Sophie has to do it pucker her lips and bat her baby blue eyes and Ruanita melts. Case in point:

Sunday afternoon, Sophie fell asleep in the minivan on the way home from the movie. I carried her in the house and laid her on the couch, where she napped for a good two hours or so. When it was time for dinner, Ruanita woke Sophie up. Sophie is…..well, I’ll just say it...Sophie is nothing short of a beast when awakened from a nap. She growled at everyone who tried to talk to her. She screamed that she did not want dinner. Because our air conditioner was broken and we had NO desire to turn on the oven, I grilled some hot dogs and we ate dinner picnic-style on the living room floor (the living room was where our shiny new oscillating fan was set up). Sophie refused to sit on the picnic blanket with her brothers. As a matter of fact, she laid on the couch kicking Ruanita as she tried to eat. Sophie laid with her head under a pillow, grumbling loudly that she hated hot dogs (not true), and repeatedly kicking Ruanita in the thigh. Ruanita told her to stop. Of course, Sophie ignored her. Ruanita told her several more times, but Sophie continued to kick her. Personally, I would have snatched her little body off of the couch and dropped her on her bed the second time she kicked me. However, Ruanita took the beating and kept on eating. When we all finished eating, I announced that we would have ice cream for dessert. Sophie immediately demanded that I give her some ice cream. Oh no, girlie! There was no way in hell that child was getting ice cream until she ate her dinner. I told her as much and went about the task of scooping up cookies and cream ice cream for the rest of the family. She threw her body on the floor. She screamed that she hated hot dogs. She demanded loudly that I better give her ice cream this minute. I ignored her and responded simply, “When you eat your dinner, Sophie, you can have ice cream.” This went on for quite a long time. At some point during Sophie’s tirade, Ruanita glanced up at me from her perch on the couch with a look that most definitely said, Come on…give the poor little girl some ice cream. Hell no! Perhaps I am a mean person, but a child who is refusing to eat her dinner, kicking people, and growling like a wild animal is not deserving of dessert in my book. Eventually, everyone finished their ice cream and all of the dishes were put in the sink. Sophie’s was the last plate sitting on our picnic blanket…untouched. She was still thrashing around on the blanket like a banshee demanding ice cream. I had had enough. Finally, I told her that in 5 minutes the kitchen would be closed, her plate would be removed, and any remote chance that she may have had of getting ice cream would be gone. She screamed that she can’t eat her dinner in five minutes. I screamed back that she had had 45 minutes to eat her dinner and it was no one’s fault but her own that she had waited until the end. So you know what my defiant little girl did next? She sat down on the blanket and proceeded to eat her entire hot dog.

It was a long, drawn-out battle. It was tiring battle, but I was victorious in the end. Don’t get me wrong…I have no preconceived notions that I am going to win this war. I can only guess that Sophie’s battle tactics will become more sophisticated and more lethal as she grows older. For this reason, I must stay on my toes. I may end up waging this war on my own since Ruanita seems to have defected to the enemy camp. I will try my best to save her….a good soldier never leaves anyone behind. However, I am not sure how successful I will be. She may very well be a lost cause where Sophie and her beautiful blue eyes are concerned. That’s ok though…I will forge ahead alone. I may have won this particular battle, but I am well aware that the war is far from over. War is hell.