The naked truth

We're having a problem. It's a behavior problem, but it's clothing itself as a dressing problem. OK, so it's an undressing problem.

Since she was 18 months old, Meggie has undressed herself. Since she was 2, she has re-dressed herself, at first with whatever she could pull from her hamper by reaching through the bars of her crib, later by helping herself to her closet. She changes her clothes during the day. It's rare that she emerges from solo playtime wearing the same thing she was wearing when playtime began. And she changes during the night. It's pretty common for me to find in the morning that she slept in a tutu. "Why are you wearing a tutu?" I ask her. "I changed," she tells me. Duh.

But back to the behavior problem. She has been building up her challenges to the law over the past several days. At first, every request of mine was met by a counter request. "Meggie, please put on your coat" prompts "How about I wear this sweater instead?" "Meggie, put your boots on" gets "What about these shoes?" And so on. Then, after a day of that, she got tired of negotiating. Filmore the teddy bear told me she said, "I don't know why I even deal with these people."

After we moved past negotiation, she just stopped doing what I asked her unless she was put in timeout. But a child who is almost always cheerful can find a way to enjoy timeout. She started to sing in timeout, and then she started rolling onto her stomach. Misbehaving in timeout (sprawling herself languidly over the steps singing her ABCs) led to a spanking. You probably thought that the threat of a pat on the backside would encourage her to keep said backside on the floor. I thought so too. But as it turns out, that's not so much the case.

So yesterday we had several timeouts and a couple of spankings.

(And by the way, Alan worked all three days of the holiday weekend. Someone has to, so I understand, but it's not so fun for me when Meggie is attempting a coup.)

Last night, she behaved well enough (barely) to receive evening storytime, but she got overzealous and would not stop jumping around on the bed, and so she missed out on bedtime songs. She was pretty upset about this, and it must have played into her getting up furtively and loading her shopping cart with books and toys (probably having decided to ditch us and our dreary rules). But I heard her activity on the monitor and went downstairs to impound the cart. She frowned at me and stomped back into bed, but, as I later discovered when I went downstairs to check on her, she pushed a toy bin against the door. Filmore heard her say, "I've had enough of these people. I'm 3 and have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

So that brings us to this morning. She woke up cheerful, as always, and was excited about the prospect of seeing her friends at playgroup. I dressed her, and she ate her breakfast surprisingly quickly. But every time I left the room, she'd shed her clothes, scattering them about conspicuously, no doubt for my amusement. I put them back on and told her that I cannot take her out if she doesn't keep her clothes on. She laughed. I should've known then that I was in for it. I got myself ready and came back to find the pants off again. I repositioned the pants and, after another warning, went outside to warm up the car (we keep the garage full of building materials, so we park outside).

When I returned, I found her giggling behind a pillow, unclothed. I told her that she had to put her clothes back on or we would not go to playgroup today. She put on her shirt amid much crying but then found a very interesting shaft of sunlight with which she could make hand shadows on the floor. I admonished her again, but she ignored me. An overwhelming show of force was in order. I employed the nuclear option: staying home ... indefinitely.

"Too late," I said, "No playgroup. No store. We're not going anywhere, because you are not behaving and you are not listening. You have used up all your chances today."

Let this be a lesson to you. If you play hardball with a toddler and are unfortunate enough to win, you will be richly rewarded with a day locked inside with a sullen, weepy toddler, rolling around on the floor, wailing "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! But I oooooooooooonly waaaaaaaaaaaaaanted to play with my friennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnds! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" No conquerors' welcome. No ticker-tape parade.

So I re-attacked while her defenses lay in ruins. Hey, people, don't get mad at me. This is war. I told her that a continued fit would result in her being put in her room by herself.

And then, guess what? The napalm cloud lifted and she surrendered to her fate, quite dignified, I might add. And now, for at least a day, I have my well-behaved Meggie back. She has told me that she cannot watch any Meggie movies until after lunch because she was too ill-behaved during the morning. She is singing and coloring in her dry-erase Winne the Pooh books. "Please" and "thank you" everywhere.

So the adults have triumphed. For now. Filmore was part of the junta, so I'm keeping an eye on him.

Mom, I want to thank you for the time when you hauled me out of the grocery story without completing your purchases because I was throwing a fit. Dad, thanks for rebuffing the teenage surliness.

To show my appreciation, guys, look what I made you:

Oh, yes. Those are tears.

But look. Twenty minutes later, happy again.