My four-year-old has finally crossed the line with me. Corde had been pushing my buttons through this whole deployment, but usually she pushes a bit, annoys me, sees that Mommy is a lot less fun of a person when she's annoyed, so she stops. Today was different. Today she did something that's beyond breaking what few rules I have in my house. Normally if I need to take a nap, I put the baby somewhere safe to play, like his playpen or his exersaucer if he doesn't want to sleep. Corde, being the big girl in the house, gets to play quietly or watch television. I don't worry about her too much because she respects what few rules I have when I'm napping. Just be nice enough not to wake me up unless it's important, and stay inside the house. She knows she's not allowed outside unless I'm sitting in the living room where I can hear her in the back yard. It works out really well for us, or did.

Today I woke from my nap to hear someone knocking on my door. They were playing in the playground behind the houses here and Corde came out. When they asked where her mom was, she told them she was taking a nap. They eventually had to go home because it was getting dark and wanted to make sure I knew where she was. I never knew the girl left the house! She knows she's not allowed to leave the house when I'm asleep. As much as it's a safe neighborhood, kidnappings do happen. She could get hurt doing something stupid and I may never know. It's just not safe for her to be outside alone. She's not old enough for that and I could get in a lot of trouble on post as well. I don't think they let you have your kids outside unattended until they're eight, which she is definitely not. We had a talk about this over the summer when she went outside before I'd gotten out of bed. We haven't had any problems since, and I remind her when I do take naps that she isn't allowed to go outside until I wake up.

Well, Corde and I had a little chat about why she went to the playground and why I was so upset. She told me I'm not allowed to be upset because she didn't get hurt. She told me no one would ever hurt her and no one would take her away. She said I wasn't allowed to be mad at her. I wasn't allowed to be scared because there were no monsters out there. She wasn't scared, so I wasn't allowed to be scared. I tried to explain it to her in terms she could understand, like when she gets scared and upset when I leave her in the car to run in and grab something from the house and I take too long, but she said that it's different. She's scared then. I'm not allowed to be scared. She shouldn't be in trouble because she didn't do anything bad. Nothing bad happened. That's teenager logic...

I think that's what upsets me more than anything else, that she doesn't think that the rule is valid. She's suddenly decided the talks everyone's had with her on "stranger danger" doesn't mean anything because she's never been kidnapped or hurt. I don't want her to have to learn by being kidnapped or hurt. I don't know if I could ever live with myself. In this day and age, I don't even know that she'd come out of it alive if it happened. I just don't know how I can get through to her how important this is!

And what gets me even more than that is there's nothing I can do about it! I've tried everything with her. I've even gotten so frustrated and fed up because she wouldn't listen that I tried spanking for a little while, which really didn't work because she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Obviously I couldn't have been spanking her hard enough to make a difference if she was just laughing about it, but my goal wasn't to hurt her. When that didn't work, I tried going with the whole learning by natural consequences. She's learned well by seeing how her friends don't want to play with her anymore when she's mean. When her actions have consequences, she follows the rules so much better. It's been great. She's learned to stop pushing my buttons because an annoyed Mommy is not a fun Mommy. She's learned that when she respects the rules that are given to her, she gets more privileges, but when she can't respect the rules, they get taken away, and it's always directly related to the action. She stays up all night watching television loudly and keeps everyone up, the television goes off and she has to go to her room. If she's quiet and respectful, I don't mind that she falls asleep in front of the television if she's having a hard time sleeping one night. If she can listen to the instructions and can follow the rules of safety, she can help me cook, otherwise she can't. I don't know how to deal with this. I can't exactly lock her in her room so she can't get out if she wakes up earlier than I do. I can go without taking naps, as miserable as that may make me, but it's not her fault I can't sleep at night. That's my problem. I'm really tempted to lock and chain the back gate on the yard so she can't just run off to the playground when she's outside. If I could lock the back door so she couldn't get out, I'd do that too. She obviously can't be trusted with a back door that she can let herself out and she can't be trusted in the back yard because this isn't the first time she's run off to the park, though when I can hear her do it, it often gets cut off that much sooner. I just don't know what to do. I feel bad chaining the back yard shut. I feel bad about looking for a way to prevent her from opening the back door and letting herself out, but at four years old, she's not old enough to go to the playground alone. It may be close enough that I can watch her from the door to my driveway, but I can't see or hear her from the house, especially if I'm asleep. It's just not safe. And what happens when she decides the playground is not enough fun and decides to wander around the neighborhood with the other kids that are allowed to play there unattended? Some of those kids are right around her age. I don't feel comfortable with my four year old wandering off on her own, especially when she doesn't tell anyone, or worse, lies about it and tries to tell me I did tell her she could go!

I just don't know what to do. It could be up to three weeks until my husband gets home and until then, I've got to do it alone. Corde's sudden decision to act up is really getting me burnt out and this is really the thing that broke it for me. It's one thing for her to throw a fit every time we leave the house because I won't take her to the places she wants to go (usually because the people she wants to see aren't home or aren't in the mood for company, otherwise I'd be happy to). If I leave her in the car for anything more than thirty seconds, even if she knows where I'm going and what I'm doing, I come out to her screaming and wailing that I left her and she hates me now. I've dealt with her taking everything away from the baby to the point where he's crying and inconsolable because he's got nothing left to play with since Corde won't let him play with her toys and keeps taking his because she wants to play with them. I don't know what's gotten into her. It's not like I don't have much time for her. Now that the baby's decided he can go play on his own without hanging on me, I've had a lot more time for Corde. She's been visiting with friends as much as usual. I hadn't been getting any more stressed out until she'd started acting out like this. It's come completely out of the blue. It's like one day she just woke up and decided that she's going to do everything in her power to make everyone else miserable and has been that way ever since. I just don't know what to do. The rest of it I can handle. Yeah, she's annoying me and upsetting the baby, but at least she's not hurting herself or anyone else, but this last stunt was just dangerous, especially since they're looking for a kidnapper in the area. It's not even like I let her go to the playground on her own and the rule was taken away because of the kidnapper. She was never allowed to go. This was always a rule. I don't know...I'm just not sure where to go from here. I'm just at wit's end.