The marker

I have been chugging along with my daily duties around the house, sorting laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, and I realized that Natalie needed her toenails cut. Natalie hates to get her fingernails & toenails cut. (I remember dreading it also when I was little.) I tried to make it a "fun" thing by letting her take off the mini stripe of toe nail polish she still had from about a month ago. That was the fun part. She had pulled out an activity book and a marker to draw with while I was removing my nail polish. When I finished I asked her to come see me and when she saw the nail clippers in my hand she took off running. (Which by the way was not acceptable.) She then proceeded to run and jump up on my bed with the marker still in her hand. Do you see where this is going? She jumped up on the bed with a green marker in her hand and now I have a green squiggly line on the bedspread that I just got about a month ago after searching almost a year for a new one.

Am I mad? - yes. Did she mean to get the green marker on the bedspread? - No. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't mean to and that she knew that was bad.

So, what is my parental plan of attack?

Well, I am trying to get the stain out of the bedspread - it is cream and brown so bleach is not an option. I tried just baby shampoo and cold water, it helped some. I think I may try aerosol hairspray.

I sent her to her room (isolation) when we both realized what she had done. I needed to calm down before dealing with her. She was still upset about having to getting her toenails cut and knew she was in trouble for getting marker on the bedspread, so she needed to calm down also.

I am going to talk to her about obeying me when I call for her and that it is not acceptable to run away when she doesn't like something.

I am also going to take away her markers. This is the second marker incident in about a week. The first one she accidentally marked on her shorts. It is now obvious that she is not ready for that responsibility. If any of you took the Ezzo courses of Prep for Toddlers or Growing Kids God's Way, the markers would be defined as something "outside of her funnel".

She really is a good little girl, but let's face it she is just like all of us, a little sinner, and she needs to be taught how to obey her parents so that she will learn to obey God.