A glimpse of things to come...

Hailey has been testing her boundaries. Translation: she has been a complete stinker a large percentage of the time. She is only (almost) twenty months, I am beginning to dread when the terrible twos are upon us - and threes. Threes (at least with our kids) were worse than the twos.

The other day she took the box that holds all the kid computer games and dumped them all out on to the floor. I told her that she had to put them back and she did put a couple back - then moved right on to the next thing she could destroy while walking all over the CD's. I told her not to walk on the CD's because she was going to crack them. She just looked right at me with a big grin on her face and started to STOMP on the CD's. That was the straw that landed Hailey Marie in her first official timeout.

She is extremely defiant. Today at the pool she kept throwing things in the water even though I was telling her not to. She would just pick up my shoe and drop it in and then look at me like "so what are you gonna do about it". If I went after her to grab her and try to punish her, she would run to Grama and cry. She knows that Grama will protect her from mean old Mommy. It is frustrating because she is our baby and our little princess but I don't want her to be a spoiled brat that gets away with whatever she wants.

When she is playing with her brothers, she tries to keep up with them as hard as she can. Sometimes she gets a little too rambunctious and cracks one of them in the head with a toy or something. They realize that she is little and doesn't know any better so they are pretty good with her. Still, I try to make it a point to her to be gentle and make sure she knows that she hurt them and to give them a "sorry" kiss and hug. I think she understands. She seems very empathetic to them when they get hurt by her doing or whatever might be the cause. So we hope... there may be good in her yet.

Doing her "time" in her first timeout. She looks traumatized doesn't she?