Isabelle is learning her place in the world. I am proud to say that she really does listen to us, even when we think she isn't. And for now she does know that we know best, even if in the moment, we think she doesn't.

Isabelle had her first lesson in negative behavior reporting.... John went to pick her up from daycare and was told that she had been very mean to one of the other kids that day. For seemingly no reason she had repeated and rudely told her "no," and at naptime walked over to the little girl, who was lying down ready for nap, and hit her over the head with a toy flower. When I got home that evening, Isabelle and I had a talk. During our talk she looked like she was listening for part of it, but then really did not want to listen and was avoiding eye contact, wriggling around etc... I had no idea what kind of difference our talk would really make.

The next day at daycare. I walked her over to the little girl and told her she needed to say she was sorry for the way she acted the day before. She started crying, and we sat for a little while. (We'd had a hard morning as it was, so she was already extra sensitive.) I didn't push it. I talked to the daycare provider about Isabelle's increasing sassiness and went on my way to work.

Later that day Isabelle took a toy away from another little girl. The day provider was on top of it, and told her that it wasn't nice to take things away and asked her to give it back and say she was sorry. Right away Isabelle said, " I'm sorry Anais." The she went over to the little girl from the day before and said "Luna, I'm sorry I was mean to you yesterday." (That's my girl) And for the rest of the day Isabelle taught all the other kids the golden rule. " No Austin, that's not nice." No Logan that's not how we treat each other." Now if we could only get her to practice that with her brother all the time!