Challenges of Motherhood part 1

No pictures tonight, just thoughts. Sometimes I worry that my daughter is going to be able to outsmart me by the time she's six years old. As rewarding as parenting is, it's every bit as challenging. Yesterday Emily colored (with black crayon) on her table and her portable DVD player. I realize this is a typical preschool thing to do but as a punishment (since we've discussed many times coloring is for paper only) we took her DVD and CD player out of her room. So no more Jay-Jay movies when I need a break (who's punishment is this anyway?) and no more music as she goes to sleep for a while. (Yes, I realize it was partly my fault for being lazy and leaving the DVD player in her room). She "felt terrible" about it and asked mommy and Jesus to forgive her for disobeying. So all was well until this evening when she refused to clean her room. I put her timer in the room and told her if she cleaned her room in time Daddy could read her a story before bed (this type of motivation usually works, especially when she knows he's on call, and I didn't figure time-out from cleaning up would be a helpful form of discipline). She goofed around for a while and then said she didn't "really feel like reading a story tonight," and she didn't think she wanted the sleepover Daddy promised to have with her this weekend either. I decided she was only three and I'd help her get started but as I helped her pick up she said, "Mom will you start being nice to me now?" By that point, I was out of answers. At those moments I worry how I will ever answer my sixteen year old's challenging questions. It's a good thing God first sends them to us as speechless babies! Here's to mommies everywhere who need words of wisdom for their intelligent little preschoolers!