boundaries

aislinn is a handful. saturday morning autumn was feeling a little under the weather, so she was lying on the couch sipping a glass of water. aislinn toddled over to the coffee table, picked up the glass of water, and poured it right on autumn's lap. autumn burst into tears and aislinn thought it was hilarious.

who is this child?

she WILL NOT leave the dog dishes alone. over and over and OVER i have to get onto her. erin suggested that i just let her eat the dog food, that she wouldn't like it and then she'd leave it alone, but that hasn't worked. she just squats there by the bowls, picks up a piece of dog food, dips it into the water, and feeds it to the dog. or herself.

on saturday, after the water incident, she had her first "time out." i realize that she's too young to understand time out, but i feel like i have to do something. i put her in the corner and stood there for a minute or so. she was utterly unaffected. she thought it was funny. she's not old enough to understand consequences yet, but i guess i have to start somewhere.

a few minutes later found her sitting on the couch hitting her baby doll and saying, "no, no!" i don't understand this at all. she's started hitting to get your attention and we've been swift to discourage this behavior. so i don't know if she was telling her baby doll, "no," or whether she was saying "no" to herself as she hit the doll. either way it was disturbing to me.

then a few minutes later i walked past the "time out"spot and there was her baby doll. i wanted to cry, but why?

we're not a yelling household, and we don't swat. the most i've ever done is slap her hand when she's done something dangerous. so seeing her engage in this sort of role play with her baby doll upset me. i feel like i'm firm with her, jake doesn't think i'm firm enough. i think he overestimates her capacity to understand cause and effect; i think he underestimates it. i think she's just exploring her boundaries and not intentionally being "bad;" he thinks she's acting out and needs to be disciplined.

it's a hard age. her vocabulary is expansive and her curiosity is incessant. she's not afraid of anything. she's the polar opposite of her sister, who embraces rules and feels comforted by boundaries.

she's putting together little two- and three-word sentences. she doesn't want to be rocked before bed anymore. she puts her shoes on by herself. i tried to get her to nap with me on sunday and she wouldn't have it - all she wanted to do was talk about the dog. what happened to my cuddly baby? it's such a big world and she's so eager to be out in it. STOP! DANGER! PELIGROSO, MY DARLING!