The past few weeks that I haven't posted have been filled with many smiles and laughs and also many struggles that we are learning how to work through. The biggest struggle in our lives right now happen to be the stage that Ella is going through. She is quite the little girl. She can be the sweetest, most angelic little girl. She will sit on our laps and cuddle with her favorite blankies. She will talk so sweetly to her sister and they will play and giggle together. She can say the sweetest, funniest things. This is the side that most people see. But lately we have been dealing with a lot of fits. Not just small fits that pass quickly either. If she starts throwing a huge fit we tell her she needs to sit in her room until she is done crying. She will scream at the top of her lungs for over an over. When she finally stops we talk about what she wanted and how to better communicate that to us next time. We are trying to convey to her that screaming doesn't get her what she wants, and we don't understand her requests that come with screaming. Its hard to know how much of it she really takes in, she seems to want to change the subject as soon as she can. But yesterday we realized how much she does understand, and seems to really feel bad about after its over. Yesterday we were going to go shopping after Ella's nap, and Ella wanted to go shopping so much that she put herself to bed too early and then wouldn't sleep! We probably shouldn't have taken her out as she can be very crabby when she is overtired, but we did. On the way home she threw one of her awful fits. And she kicked her daddy's seat very hard all the way home. She talked to my mom on the phone later that day and offered her a lot of info about her tantrum. She said things like, "I was really really really really naughty in the car today." "I kicked daddy's seat really hard." and "I just wanted mommy and I just wanted daddy to cuddle me."

Other than those fits, we have seemed to eliminate a lot of other mini fits that have to do with her opinionated-nesss. We felt there was a fine line between choosing our battles and having a spoiled toddler, but after a lot of research we found that it is best to give your toddler 2 choices as much as possible. They do, however, have to learn that sometimes there isn't a choice. For example, instead of saying, "Do you want to go to bed? Or do you want to play?" You say, "It is time for bed now. Do you want to snuggle with your pink blanket or your green blanket?" This is suppose to help them feel more in control of their life, and it really has helped with Ella. Someone else told me that from experience she has found that if you are constantly saying no to your child or making them upset by making everything a battle, they will start to be upset all of the time by habit.

Being a parent sure is tough work, there is a lot of trial and error because there isn't a manual for each child and every child is so completely different. But we are working through things and hoping to see much more of our sweet little Ella and less major fits.