You can give a Toddler a cup but you can't always make them drink from it.

It's been a while since I've been on here, summer was just kind of well a glimpse wasn't it? Hot one week and then not so hot the other weeks.   I was busy like everyone else - trying to keep both girls entertained, but mostly Grace who seemed to ask for a play date pretty much everyday (I guess I'm not as fun as I thought I was).  But now that she's back in school I can get back to my writing. 
Today's post is about how I have stepped into a negotiator position with Leah.  Leah who is not even two years old yet, but has her toddler attitude down to perfection.  The whole whiny, ears only work when she wants something, being unreasonable and stubborn as a mule is how she acts most of the time.  She's like the Nursery Rhyme my mother used to say to me, 'There was a little girl." 

There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good, she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid.  

Ok, now Leah isn't horrid but she isn't shy to tell you she's upset and she'll stand her ground, or at least try to to get her way.  When she doesn't want to go some place and you try to move her, she'll just raise her arms and try to slide out of your grasp or the classic just slump to the ground.  She enjoys screaming, much to our neighbours delight and telling you straight up, "no, not fair!" (which I believe she has heard from Grace.)  Most of the time it's not a big deal and I know one day she will make an excellent protester!  I can ignore her attempts at getting her way but it drives me up the wall when it comes to her finishing her drinks (either milk or water). 
Leah has been drinking from a cup for a while but she enjoys just taking the smallest sip - enough to just wet her mouth it seems.  We don't give her a lot to drink either because while like I said she has been drinking for a while, accidents still happen.  So maybe her cup has a quarter of what her sister gets and yet - IT STILL TAKES AN HOUR FOR HER TO DRINK IT! I'm not kidding.  This morning I was in a stand off waiting for her to finish her milk - it took an hour before my daughter finally gave in (yes I know where she gets her stubbornness from and the sooner she learns that I'm the master the better it will be for all of us.)  I feel like I am negotiating with the Taliban.  Not that I have ever negotiated with the Taliban but I did see the first 10 minutes of 'Zero Dark Thirty' and it looked a lot like what I go through to get Leah to drink all the milk or water from her cup.  There are tears and alternating being shouting and being really super duper nice.  There is pleading and some bribing and a lot of "no way".  Sometimes we just have to wait it out but other times we can trick her into thinking she has won by giving her a straw or a different cup.  In the end Mommy always wins, because in the end Leah usually finishes whatever is in her cup.