You Did What?!?

It's been that kind of week here in the Spontak house. Hannah started the week off right by deciding to "improve" on her new haircut. On Monday while I was using the bathroom she got the scissors out of the junk drawer (not safety scissors I might add, but big, heavy duty work scissors!) and proceeded to cut close to 4 inches off of both sides of her hair while leaving the back untouched. In some areas the hair she left remaining was only about an inch long! Thankfully her hair was in a half ponytail so when her hair is down the longer hair covers the much shorter hair underneath and her handiwork is mostly unnoticeable. She announced the deed to me by coming into the bathroom and stating, "my hair feels shorter." I then noticed the tell tale hair pieces that indicate that someone has just had a hair cut all over her shoulders. I was furious. I'm mostly over it now, but every time I put her hair into a half ponytail I see those butchered locks underneath and I get a little grumpy.

Tuesday and Thursday Hannah had really rough days behavior wise. There was a lot of screaming and refusing to take her time-outs. Needless to say she didn't have a lot of credits left at the end of each day for bedtime privileges.

This morning Hannah came into our room to announce that she had had an accident. She then proceeded to explain to a very groggy Kyle that she had used toilet water (with unflushed pee in it to boot) and toilet paper to wash her legs off from her accident and had also washed her chewy toy off in the toilet and flushed her wet underwear down the toilet! OH MY GOSH! What on earth was that girl thinking?!? I absolutely cannot imagine what possessed her to do that since she has access to a sink, soap, and wash cloth. She also knows where dirty clothes go and knows that nothing besides pee, poop, and toilet paper (courtesy of the bus incident) is EVER flushed down the toilet. UGH! I just had to laugh at this one. I was so tired and just flabbergasted at the whole situation that it was all I could do to keep it together until we got her squared away back in her room. The rest of the day continued to be a struggle as Hannah was defiant all morning and proceeded to run away from us in public places twice in the span of an hour while we were out when she was told to stay close because she was being disobedient. This running away is getting to be a big problem. She's been doing it quite a bit lately, but usually it is just with me. Today she pulled it on Kyle. I'm not sure how to stop it short of keeping her in a stroller or on a leash all the time, but if we do that then she won't ever learn not to run away because she doesn't even have the option to do it so she won't need to control her urges to do so. Any ideas on how to impress upon an almost 3 year old how dangerous it is to run away in public places, parking lots, and streets would be welcome as well as some strategies that have helped you personally to deal with the behavior if you have experience with this issue.

Night potty training continues to go well. She's been dry about every other night this past week which I think is pretty good and most accidents occur in the early morning so we haven't had any more of the multiple accidents in a night incidents like we had the first night. I'm still debating on whether or not we should be waking her up when we are ready to go to bed so that she can go to the bathroom one more time. I'm sure this would help her make it through the night almost every night, but she does make it through the night about half the time without waking her up and she is SO HARD to get to go back to sleep that I can't decide if the lack of sleep it causes her is worth the benefit of her not having as many accidents.

PS. The pictures are from our visit with Hannah's birthmother, Tiffany, and her brother and sister, Chase and Kayla, over Memorial Day weekend when we were back in Indiana. Also, there's one of Hannah with her best friend Evelyn taken during that same trip back home.