I'll Take a 30, Not a Full

Here’s how attached Danica is to dolls these days: At Danielle’s, our daycare provider, there is a Cabbage Patch Kid that Danica likes to play with, carry around, and feed. Yesterday, Kindra called me and told me that when she got to Danielle’s to pick The Girl up, Danica was crying and Danielle was holding her.

Apparently, Danica was playing with the CPK when Sophia, who’s about five months younger than Danica, took it away. Danica got annoyed, went over, and shoved Sophia over by her face, and took the doll back (yay!). *Ahem.* I mean, that was not something that we condone, and so Danica earned her first “timeout.” I suppose Danielle sat her in a corner and made her stay put, because I can’t imagine how else you would put The Girl in a timeout. When Kindra got there, Danica had just finished being punished.

[Off the record, how cool is it that my girl’s not gonna stand for having things taken away from her? =)]

All of this brings me to a question that, ironically, was asked of me yesterday by a co-worker, and that is whether or not Kindra and I have a discipline system in place for Danica. I suppose we don’t right now, beyond telling her “no” for the big dangers, “inappropriate” for things that are, well… inappropriate, and taking things away from her when she doesn’t listen. Fortunately, she’s young enough that she’ll throw a fit for about thirty seconds and then forget what she was throwing a fit about.

Other than that, we don’t really have a system. Guess we’d better start reading up. Sure, we’ve talked about a lot of things including what’s okay, what’s not, and punishments in general, but a lot of scenarios we discuss come up from situations we hear about or went through. Consequently, those situations tend to be with older kids. Fortunately, up until recently, Danica’s been pretty mellow, and even at her most difficult, she’s still a good girl. *Cross fingers.*

Oh, and since we’re on the subject, here’s another funny story that Kindra relayed to me (how come, as much as I’m around, I never get the really good stories? *sigh*): Danica was being naughty for Kindra the other day, so Kindra slapped her on the butt a little… Danica just smiled and then started slapping her butt herself. She did it again last night when Kindra was getting her ready for her bath. Kindra had stripped Danica down, at which point Danica looked at Kindra, slapped her own behind, and giggled… Sheesh.

Kids are nuts.