Terrible Twos

We knew it wouldn't last forever.

I am not sure if it is her way of adjusting to her baby brother invading her well-marked space or just the age, but our little princess has officially entered the Monster stage of her development. I hope I live through it.

Over the last couple of weeks Rileigh has taken to letting us know she is "all-finished" eating by launching her plate (behind her head, or across the room, or simply tossing it over the side of her chair) and having it crash down splattering food all about the room. Joy.

We have tried several methods of dealing with this- all with less than effective results:

• A serious look and a stern "NO" in my most intimidating "dad" voice- usually met with the "cute doe-eyed face" and the phrase "I dropped, I dropped" ( as if to blame it all on gravity) This method was modified from the previous one that consisted of me yelling an assortment of expletives- Kathy informed me that this was not going to enrich her development and may only serve to expand her vocabulary- good point.
  
• A brief trial of not yelling at her, but "explaining" that it is not nice to hurl plates of food about also failed miserably. She would usually stare at us intently and nod her head in complete agreement and say, "I know". Still the plates flew.
• Even a little spank on the offending hand was only met with a pitiful confused look and continued aerodynamic testing of our dinner wear.
• My lovely wife even advocated a trial of "ignoring" the dish as it flew past. This plan never got off the ground- the other day Kathy was in the middle of trying to calm down a screaming Dylan while Rileigh was having lunch. I was in the back room reading , when I heard my wife yell in frustration.

Lately we have decided to be more pro-active and employ what I call the "microwave popcorn" approach. This consists of being vigilant during meals and snatching the plate from her whenever the popping eating slows down and there is more than several seconds between bites and she gets that "I'm finished" look in her eyes. So far it has worked pretty well. Until tonight.

Apparently we had let our guard slip down just enough and.... oh look, it's raining rice, corn, peas, and chicken cutlet!



I went back to my stern-face-"NO"-routine and put her in her crib for a brief "time-out". She has recently learned to say, "I'm sorry" and after a few minutes I got her out. I was about to clean up the mess when she walked over and looked down at her handiwork and employed her latest tactic:

Plead ignorance, blame it on someone else, and when all else fails, dazzle them with cuteness.