Whining and crying have become the constant background noise for my life.

Evie is going through an extremely difficult phase at the moment. Everything is “wrong”: she didn’t want to wear her snow pants, she DID want to wear her snow pants, you picked the wrong hat, you won’t play hide and seek, you found her too quickly when you were playing hide and seek, you weren’t supposed to sing along, you WERE supposed to sing along, etc.

Picking out clothes for the day is particularly difficult. The daily power struggle got to be such a hassle, that we had to make a rule that Evie is no longer allowed to pick out her clothes. Whatever an adult picks, she has to wear.

I don’t know that this has been a success exactly. We did get rid of the power struggle, but we replaced it with over an hour of sobbing, pleading, and whining every morning. Her socks don’t feel right. She wanted a dress today. She DIDN’T want a dress today. Her tights don’t feel right. Her turtleneck doesn’t feel right. Her pants don’t feel right. The thing is, it really doesn’t matter what you pick, it’s not like you could have made a different selection and avoided the whole disaster, she just automatically demands the opposite of whatever you pick. Only to have the whole thing repeated again at night with pajamas.

Did anybody else have this issue with their 4 year olds?

I’m just so tired of constantly fighting with her, constantly telling her to hurry up, constantly threatening her with everything from, “You’re going to miss breakfast” to “Should we call school and tell them you’re not coming today?” to “No story tonight, you missed your chance”.

When Evie was one, everybody said, “Just wait until she’s two.” When she was two, they said, “You think that’s bad? Wait until she’s three!” Then it was four, and I have to say, that’s the worst so far. I’m hoping it gets better from here, since nobody has yet told me, “You think four is bad? Wait until you see five!”