I'm Thinking About Selling her to the Zoo...

Only I'm not sure they'd take her.

Kidding. Well, about the selling her to the zoo thing. I'm pretty certain that they wouldn't take her though. I don't blame them.

It is usually pretty rare that Chloe will nap. Unfortunately, she definitely needs to. I'll put her down to "rest" but that's usually all I get. Now this usually makes for some unpleasant evenings for me. Or at least part of the evenings.

A pretty typical ride home will consist of Chloe playing with a toy, book, etc, in her car seat.

So then I'll ask her a question, or make a comment, or something to engage her. Her response almost every.single.time is one of three things:

1. NNNOOOOO!!!!!
2. A mean, nasty grunt.
3. Scream at the top of her lungs.

A lot of times a few minutes later, she'll make some type of comment to me, like nothing ever happened. But if I respond back...

So I'll just end up ignoring her the rest of the way home after telling her that response is not acceptable. (It's just five minutes)

Today for example:

Me: Chloe, do you want to listen to Spongebob?
Chloe: No!!!!
Me: Do you want to listen to the Horsie Songs?
Chloe: Aaaahhhh!!!!! (And then attempts to throw her book because I talked to her)


We'll get home and sometimes she's pleasant, sometimes she reverts back to that type of behavior.

Today, we went to the Library, then the grocery store, then came home. We decided to make some Jello. I let her pour in the powder and we are waiting for the water to boil. She's on her tricycle at this point, laughing and playing, so I decide to try and take her picture. After realizing that the camera is on video, I improvise. Here is a small clip of the child's response: (It's short, and I cut it off due to her response, but you should get the gist of it.




I'm really at a loss as to how to change this behavior. If I come after her and try to talk to her, it makes it worse. If I don't let her do what she wants afterwards, it gets worse. It's like the only thing I can do is let her have her fit, then go right back to what she wants to do, which in my mind makes her think that her behavior is acceptable. It would be different if this was a once in a while thing, but it's every.single.day.

Again, in the car, I just ignore her the rest of the way home and everyone is happy. At home, I either stop whatever it is that we are doing, or if we're not doing anything, I'll go sit down across the room and have her sit in the time out chair (which REALLY upsets her). After a few minutes, I'll call her over to me and explain that her behavior was not acceptable and make her apologize. She's usually a lot better afterwards, but it doesn't seem like the frequency of these episodes are decreasing...

Thoughts???

It's a good thing that her pleasant side is enough to make me forget about the devilish side~ :)