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Hey there…it’s been a while. Okay, a LONG while. Life has been just buzzing right along here at Princess Tater Tot’s house. And I have just realized that it IS Princess Tater Tot’s house. While she is not completely over-indulged, I have realized that there are some things that I could be doing differently. As an only child, the spoilage factor runs high anyway and, for the past few days anyway, that has become abundantly clear. As I only have a few minutes until I need to get her up, I will run through this at record speed and be back tomorrow for an update.

For a few days now, The Princess has been acting, well, SPOILED. And, yes, I used capital letters for a reason. Melting down at the tiniest thing. Dramatic crying spells on the floor when she can’t do something she wants to do. Irritating and slow behavior. Ignoring requests and commands. And saying “NO” in a less-than-nice voice to most things. As this is fairly unusual for her (at least the intensity and duration that I’m seeing now), I kept asking her if she felt okay thinking that maybe her blood sugar numbers were off or that she might have a UTC (more common for diabetic girls, apparently). Nope. She feels fine. She’s just running the show.

So I looked online a bit for articles on toddler behavior and, while looking at the library for other things, came across another book that I’m currently reading called “I Refuse To Raise A Brat” by Marilu Henner and a child psychologist. It has brought up some good points that I need to pay attention to. As the parent of an only child who is a girl, I have tended to protect her (for lack of a better word) too much. And I will pay if I continue. I need to keep in mind that my job and my goal here is to raise a confident, productive member of society, not to make her feel good all of the time.

This explanation is simplified and I am not the over-indulgent mother who lets her child get away with everything but there are things I feel I need to change. I’m going to take a little more time to synthesize my thoughts and the information that I’m reading before I expand on this. I was just so excited to realize that I need to change things…okay, excited is maybe not the word I’m looking for but I’m at a loss right now for the right one so I’ll leave it at that.

Now I’m off to get Princess Tater Tot up for the day. She’s trying her first ballet class today! And that’s a whole other post…there have been tutus everywhere lately!