Seriously...

I think I need a vacation from my child.

I love her dearly, but lately I really don't like her very much. She has become quite disrespectful and disobedient in the last couple of weeks. And lets not talk about the bad attitude and defiance, oh my gosh!

I don't think in my parenting journey thus far I've ever felt so bewildered. At least once a day I look at her and think to myself "who is this kid??" Like I said before, I'm sure there is some cognitive growth going on, and that's playing a part, but dang, I don't have any idea what to do with her.

Talking to her is like talking to a brick wall, a wall that can talk back and be rude. I feel like I can scarcely take her out of the house. I mean, I'm no pushover of a disciplinarian, I'm pretty strict, so she's not meeting my standards at all, but I don't think I ask for too much (I could be wrong).

I expect her to be able to be still and quiet for a short amount of time, 2 or 3 minutes. She can't seem to function unless she's twirling around in circles or messing with something around here, or crawling on the floor all the while, chattering or singing at the top of her lungs, or making weird noises. Generally making me crazy.

I thought by age 4 I could let her walk around a store with me, but apparently not. She's walking away, going to do exactly what SHE wants to do with no regard for the fact that I asked her to stay beside me and keep her hands to herself. She'll pick up whatever she sees, and ends up messing things up half the time. It's like when she was 18 months old and I could let her walk because she'd bolt, except now she has the cognitive ability to understand and obey and she actively chooses not to.

She also used to have manners, but those seem to have been completely forgotten, even though we expect them to be used at least as much as we did before. She's taken to making one word demands, and yelling the one word. If I'm in the kitchen fixing a meal she comes in and looks at me and shouts "CRACKERS!" while pointing to the crackers. Umm, excuse me? Every time I ask her "Does it ever work when you ask with no manners, do you ever get what you want??" She says "no." Okay then. Then I tell her to ask using kind words and manners. She does and if appropriate at the time, she gets what she asked for.

It's exhausting and infuriating to constantly be defied. She tries to negotiate everything, but sorry, sometimes the answer is just NO, and I don't want you to try and talk me into it, whatever it is. Today she turned on the water works every time I told her no. That is completely out of character, she's never been a tantrum-ing kind of kid.

I think it's even more difficult because she is so freaking smart, and speaks so well. It's hard to remember she's only 3 and thus thinks like a 3 year old, even though she talks like a child much older. Emotionally she's only 3, but I feel like she should do so much, I expect a lot of her. I think I need to take a parenting class, "parenting the gifted child" or something like that. Does anything like that exist?

I probably do expect too much from her, but that doesn't change the fact that she has been ridiculous lately. I have an admittedly low tolerance for her attitude, and that's my issue, but even still, I don't know how to deal with her. I feel like I'm constantly griping at her and punishing her, and we have very little fun together anymore. We do use some positive reinforcement, but I wish we didn't need to have a "system" in place just to get her to behave.

Okay, today's vent is over. Holy crap.