Getting Tough.

Sometimes being a parent is really tough. Eve has always been an awesome kid. Don't get me wrong she can be a royal pain in the behind but for the most part she is very well behaved. Until the last month or so that is. She has decided to start pushing the limits. Mostly she has just stopped listening which drives me nuts. I used to be able to ask her once to do something and she would just do it. Now she tells me no way. We skipped the terrible twos and went to the sassy 3.5. This is not a stage they often talk about. She is setting her limits and trying to become more independent. I seriously have to remind myself she is only 3.5 and that this behavior is totally normal. All of my IRL friends who have kids around the same age are dealing with the same issues. So today we asked her a million times to clean up the living room and her bedrooms. Tornado Eve had swept through in the morning and you could barely walk at all in either room. Have I ever mentioned that one child shouldn't have nearly as many toys as she does. Eve wanted to do 2 things today. 1.)Help grandma make a cake. 2.) Go see the fireworks at the park tonight. Well she refused to clean up for more than 10 minutes in the living room. We ended up taking away both activities from her. She still wouldn't clean so we told her we were going to throw away all the toys left in 5 minutes. She finally started to clean again for 1 minute. After 5 minutes we got a garbage bag and packed up all of the extra toys left out. I have never seen such a fit. Once she calmed down Adam took her to her room and told her she had an hour to get everything put away or it was going the garbage too. Well after 10 minute reminders for the entire hour she managed to not put away anything. Adam and I packed up all those toys too. We have three large garbage toys sitting in our garage right now. She was even more upset because she lost 2 very beloved toys during the room cleanup:Boo and her flashlight. As they were placed in the bag she kept crying those are my favorites please no. Now before you think I am totally cold hearted let me explain that this whole process made me really sad but it is what had to be done. We made her take a nap after we finished packing up all the toys on the floor. When she woke up she was a completely different child. She was back to my sweet little girl who knows how to listen. She asked nicely for her toys back and when I explained that they were taken away because she didn't know how to listen she said sorry. We made a deal that every day she is a good girl and listens she will get one toy back. I think this will get her to act properly. She was an angel for the rest of the night and didn't fight us on anything. I am not opposed to her being independent but I do expect her to listen and have respect for her elders something she was quickly losing. I hope this does the trick or we are back to square one. I hate having to discipline her. I honestly think it is harder on me than her.