Turn Off!

I'm thinking the phase we are going through with Katie right now is pretty typical for kids' her age.  At least, I hope it is.  Everything is going along fine, but the time comes when the fun is done and Katie needs to get ready for bed or out of the bath or some other undesirable task.  Last night, such an occasion arose.  Katie was taking a bath, but had been in there for about 30 minutes and it was time to get out.  So I started with my regular cajoles.  "Katie, let's go brush your teeth.  Katie, let's read a story.  Katie let's get your frog jammies."  And so on and so forth with no luck.  So then I went with my new tactic for getting her to pay attention to me.  I said, "Katie, you need to turn on your listening ears" and I pulled on my earlobes.  That got a glance, so I repeated myself.  Another glance, although this was more of a glare.  The third time I said it, she looked up at me and pulled her own earlobes and said "Turn off!"  Ooohhh, that made me mad!  So I said it again, and again she replied with, NO!  Turn off!"  So much for that technique.  It clearly has backfired on me.  In the end, I had to pick her up out of the empty tub all while she yelled at me about how she didn't want to take a bath.  Sigh...

post bath