Let them eat.....Napkins???

  The "car rider" line at my son's school is impossibly long. Due to the fact that Zoey's afternoon nap usually runs over into pick-up time, we are usually running impossibly late. It is usually a mad dash to the car and to the school, only to find we will be sitting there in line for at least 15 minutes anyway. So, on this particular day, I had run through the drive through at McDonald's to get her a snack before heading over to hurry up and wait.

 She finished her food and was holding up her tiny little hands to be wiped off. Since we were just waiting, I thought it was a good moment to show her how to use a napkin. So I demonstrate how to do it, then hand it to her and she mimics perfectly. Great job Mom, right?? Well, hold on a minute...

  This little girl of mine is VERY different from my son. She is 1 going on 13, I am certain of it.  She is a sweet little baby. She exudes so much personality that you would swear she drinks sunshine rather than milk. She is energetic, bubbly, loud and VERY stubborn.  If you try to tell her no, she just does it over and over and screams and laughs at you. If you try to take something away, she throws such a fit that it sounds like someone is amputating a limb from a vulture. The pitch and volume of the screeching is indescribable, though "screeching-dying vulture" is pretty close.

  This is the part of her personality that I am about to encounter in my car. I have been reading my Kindle while waiting for the line to start moving. I hear the rustling around of the napkin and know she is still doing something with it back there. So I turn around and see that she has very nimbly and effectively turned a full size napkin into a zillion tiny pieces and is enjoying every minute of it. I am not worried about the mess, I got over trying to have a clean car when Dane was a toddler. But we now have a new problem...she has decided to eat the napkin.
  My first reaction is to grab it out of her mouth while saying "NOOOO!!! Zoey!! You can't eat THAT! Shoo-shoo!!!!!" She laughs, scrunches up her face and sticks out her tongue to show me that she IS doing it- then waits to see what my next move is.  I try to grab it from her. And I immediately get the reaction I hate, the "fit of epic-proportions" as described above. A napkin is not food, and she cannot eat it! This is ridiculous, give me that napkin!!! Argh! And then...
  It hits me. She didn't even want to eat it. She had just started doing it when I noticed. My reaction was pure motivation for her to suddenly REALLY want to. Alright Mommy, your move. Let's think it through. Is a napkin poisonous? No. Is it digestible? I think so. Does it taste good enough she is going to actually eat all of it? Probably not. So I pull back, and just stare at her. Then I say, "Well, go ahead. If you want to eat it, then go ahead." After a few seconds she stops and just stares at me. Then she grins real big and shoves another piece in her mouth and starts chewing. Then makes a yuck-face and starts trying to spit it out. Mommy 1, Zoey 0.
   One thing I have learned from my older child is that they seem to be born with a certain type of personality and it doesn't really change all that much as they get older. If this is foreshadowing for how she is going to be as a teenager, I can prepare to have my hands VERY full. Now is proabably a good time to start picking my battles. If it isn't dangerous, deadly or hurtful to someone else, maybe it isn't worth the drama. Especially if my protest only inspires more desire to do IT..whatever IT may be that day. I think I am better off embracing her sometimes difficult personality and figuring out how to beat her at her own game. I need to stop and think before engaging in a war with a 1 year old. Hopefully along the way she will realize that I sometimes when I tell her no, it might be for her benefit. I say, "Let them eat napkins!"