Battle of wills

I will be the first to admit that I am stubborn and bull-headed. Julia has seemed to have inherited this trait from me. She can be very stubborn when she wants to be. This occasionally leads to a Battle of Wills between us.

Take today as an example:
I was on the phone and Julia dumped out a deck of cards and spreads them over the computer room floor. After I got off my phone call I tell Julia she had to pick up the cards. She replied, "No, mommy do it". OH NO, I don't think so little girl!!! So we go back and forth with me telling her to pick them up and she telling me to do it. By this point I am getting pretty stern with her and she is crying. She is even trying to walk away, only to have me hold her and making her stay, telling her to clean them up. At this point, I am just about ready to give in and just pick them up myself because it would be so much simpler, but I know that would be sending the wrong message. So I continue with the battle of wills with a 2 year old! I finally tell her she is going to have to sit in time out because she is being a "bad girl". To which upsets Julia more and she tells me she is "a good girl". So I explain that good girls listen to their mommy's and pick up the cards. This seems to work and Julia starts picking up the cards. After she got about half of them picked up I told her what a good girl she was being and helped her pick up the rest. I even had her give me a high five when she was done and told her what a good, big girl she was to pick up the cards. Once I told her she was being a good girl for picking them up, she actually seemed to be enjoying picking them up!

Potty training was/is another battle of wills. She knows how to do it and knows when she has to got, but as soon as I put a diaper on her to leave the house, she no longer thinks she has to use the potty. I finally got brave and just started taking her out of the house with underwear. Surprisingly, she has been really good about it. She has had a few accidents, especially when she gets busy, put for the most part she has been great. She is only wearing diapers at night now. It is just getting through to her that she has to do it a certain way, NOT her way!!

I think this girl is going to drive me to drinking with her stubbornness!!