Stubborn and Willful

We thought Bentley was stubborn, but we have since learned he's a mere amateur. Viva is way more stubborn and she's been at the game a lot less time. Let me give you three prime examples of Viva's stubborn and willful behavior.

The past few days Viva has refused to stay in her crib at nap time. She gets out of her crib and climbs into Bentley's. Sometimes he's awake, but if not, no problem. She simply sits on top of her slumbering sibling. More often she climbs into Jake's crib. Sometimes he's okay with her visiting, other times it makes him very crabby. Again, she cares not if her guest host is happy or crabby, awake or sleeping. If she's not visiting her brothers' cribs, she's trying to escape the room. Fortunately for us, she is not quite tall enough (or her hands aren't large enough?) to turn the door knob on the bedroom door. Jake can turn the door knob, but for whatever reason chooses to stay in his crib.

I have returned her to her crib eight times during one nap period. It would have been more, but I gave up. One time when I grabbed her out of her twin's crib and deposited her back into her crib, she had the gall to complain that I left her dolly behind in Jake's crib. When she crib hops she takes her doll, blanket, and sometimes even her bear, with her. Ridiculous. Viva is up long after her brothers are sleeping. She is very persistent.

Another persistent habit we cannot break is playing in the dirt of the potted houseplants. She has a favorite plant that is on top of the children's bookshelf. She takes handfuls of its dirt and throws the very dry clods on the ivory carpet, the Diego couch, and on the bookshelf. How fun!!? GRRR! She gets in BIG TROUBLE. She doesn't care. She does it again. Just this afternoon Jake came and got me to show me what she was up to. The boys know it's totally a bad thing for her to do, but she doesn't?! I think not. She knows it's an off limit activity, but she indulges herself anyway.

Another bad indulgence is when she teases her brothers. When they are happily playing with their cars, trains, puzzles, balls, etc...she sneaks in and grabs one of their personal hoard and runs away as fast as she can. Her thievery makes the boys furious beyond words. Indeed, they start shrieking at her. If the adults ignore her antics, she keeps it up until her brothers start beating on her. Why does she do that?!

I try to think back to when Kara was little, I can't recall if she was this stubborn and willful at almost two. When you only have one child, it's not a big deal if she doesn't take a nap now and then. With three toddlers, nap time is ESSENTIAL to the caregivers' mental health.

Well, I gotta go...she's in Jake's crib AGAIN. He's tired and crabby and wants his personal space. I can relate to those feelings.