Oh this child! Don’t let that sweet smile fool you – she’s ALL kinds of feisty and sassy. She tests our patience on a hourly, sometimes minutely basis, but she’s also a lot of fun. I’m starting to realize that so much of parenting is basically repetition. Here are a few of the things that we say over, and over, and OVER again hoping that they will eventually stick.

• “Say please” (or thank you, or you’re welcome, or whatever other polite term we’re working on).
• “What do you say?” (Along the lines of the point above – the answer is usually “Please” or “Thank you.”)
• “Guess what? I love you.”
• “How about we read a book?”
• “Inside voice please.”
• “Leave the dog alone! She needs her space.”
• “Do you need to sit on the potty?”
• “Hooray! You went pee in the potty!”
• “Clean up Clean up Everybody Clean Up” (the “Clean up” song)
• “How do you think you might get that” (what I’ve started saying to her when she says “I wa-ant that” – the answer is usually when she asks for it politely then she can have it).
• “Oh really?” (my response when she’s telling me some story or thought of hers, which could be anything from “we should go to Alaska and see a moose” to “how about we eat chocolate chips and watch Elmo” – both of which she has said today.)