After a "challenging" day with Kenzie yesterday we went and bought three books. One is called "Stop Struggling With Your Child," another is "You Can't Make Me (but I can be persuaded)," and the last is "Raising Your Spirited Child." It's like peering into her mind to read the definition of a Strong Willed Child. They teach that parents need to not engage in power struggles and refrain from saying things like "you must" or "you will." It goes against my own strong-willed core to hand over control to a three year old, but at this point I'm willing to try!

Although it's not intuitive, it does seem to work. This weekend she spent the night at Grammy and Grampy's so she could go to Eric Ode's (AKA her Rockstar) 40th birthday party. On the phone to her beforehand I said, "Hey Kenzie, I'd love to hear about the party. Maybe when you come home you can tell me about it." Her reply, "No, I don't want to do that." I softened, "well, you can think about it." Miss Determination: "Mom, I don't want to tell you about the party." So, conceding the victory, I said, "alright, honey, it's totally up to you." We said goodbye. A few minutes later the phone rang, "Mom? I do want to tell you all about the party when I get home." Hey, maybe this hocus pocus can work!