Boy, we had a pretty good morning, a half way decent afternoon, but we really had a crappy evening around here today. The weather was wonderful.....sunny and low 60s, so Alison and I went for a walk. That was nice. Since the snow is mostly melted now, I noticed quite a bit of dog poop in the backyard that needed to be picked up. That was Kevin’s job after supper. I knew that Alison was going to want to go out, too, so I told her I would take her out to practice riding her tricycle on the driveway. Riding a tricycle is one thing she does at PT, and since we havne’t had PT because of spring break this week, I figured it would do her some good. So we had a compromise....she got to go outside, which she wanted to do, and she did some PT, which I wanted her to do. The deal was that she would ride to the end of the driveway and back. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way down the driveway she was more interested in watching what the kids across the street were doing. I turned her around and headed her back towards the garage. She was more interested in what the little dog down the block was doing. I finally told her she could either peddle her tricycle or go back inside. She wouldn’t peddle anymore, so I picked her up and took her back inside. Was she ever mad! She threw a rip roaring temper tantrum, so I sent her to her room until she was done. She came back out and said that she was ready to go back outside. I told her we could only go outside if she would practice peddling her tricycle. She said ok, so we went out to try it again. Again, she peddled a short way down the driveway and decided she was done. Again I told her she could peddle the tricycle or go back inside. Again she refused to peddle anymore, so again I picked her up and took her back inside. Again with the tantrum and again she was sent to her room until she could get herself under control.

I can imagine some people --including the couple out for a walk who passed our house while I was trying to get Alison to peddle-- are thinking I’m some kind of hard ass or something, but we’re having a real problem around here with if you do this then you can do this, but if you don’t, you can’t. Miss Alison is very stubborn, and while it’s good in some respects, it’s time really time for her to realize that she can’t have her way all the time. So we’re having a lot of tantrums around here.