Bringing it

That's a misleading photo.  Lyla was a seething, rabid, snarling ogre this evening.  If she wasn't like two-and-a-half feet tall, she would be very intimidating.

"NO!  I don't WANNA go to BED!"

"Lyla, you're reinforcing stereotypes of toddlers again."

Actually, tonight it went on so long that eventually I matched her volume and emotional intensity in my response.  "LYLA!  You will NOT speak to your PARENTS--" and so on.  Not a good strategy.  But it came out and as it was coming out, I was thinking, "This is a poor technique."

"--and aNOTHER thing!  You WILL--"

"NO, DADDY!"

Toddler behaving like a toddler versus parent behaving like a toddler: Toddler wins.

I understand why people spank their kids.  I don't like it and I've never done it, nor do I plan to start, but sometimes you have moments where your disciplinary bag of tricks is empty at the same moment your toddler becomes an ogre.  The toddler needs to be taught a lesson or else everything will snowball into a life of thievery and crack-smoking, but due to your own exhaustion or whatever, you're not up to the challenge of navigating the toddler's nonsensical and fickle logic in order to cleverly impose your will.  Smack on the butt would do the trick, though, and it's easy. 

I won't debate whether spanking is violent or damaging; who really knows?  But it's a solution completely devoid of creativity and therefore a terrible solution.  So is yelling. 

Tomorrow at bedtime, I'm bringing my A-game.