Only Funny Cause It's Not Your Kid

I've been struggling to keep Caleb engaged. He's very bossy high-spirited. He refuses to do things with me that I never thought could be an argument with a 3-year old. Like when I try to read him a story and it's not bedtime, or when I try to sing... anything, or when I dance, or when I want to play a game by the rules. I just keep telling myself that his strong-willed nature will do him good when he grows up, if we can manage to help him control it.

The funny thing is that I *know* he gets it from me. Once I was working with someone to get a job done that was backlogged 6-months. She was coming up with some ideas of how we could do extra things to make the work better. But we just didn't have time for it and it was really more appropriate to implement on the current work, which we couldn't do at the time because there was a 6-month backlog! She continued to insist so I finally said very sternly "How about this! I tell you what to do and you just do it!" Oh, how this comes back to me every time Caleb explains to me how we are supposed to play Connect 4, or how I'm not supposed to put the Legos in his dump truck *that* way.

So, I went to the library and borrowed a bunch of parenting books. One of which was The New Strong-Willed Child. I have to admit that reading through this book, I realized that Caleb is not even close to being the most strong-willed child ever. But then again, I knew that already. He is somewhat controllable. I'd just like to be more equipped in those times when he isn't so controllable because I detest feeling like I yell at him *all the time*. There are some funny stories in this book. But you know, only funny cause it's not your kid.

When Caleb throws a tantrum in public and we get to the point where I say "That's it! You're getting a spanking when we get home!" he gets even more insane and then starts to scream as loudly as he can manage "BUT MOMMY! I DON'T WANT A SPANKING!" And yes, it's really embarrassing. But this story made me feel better:

When we were riding in the family car and Dana was in trouble and knew what was waiting for her at home, she would put both hands on the window and scream at people when we stopped at red lights. She would shout, "Save me! Save me!"

And here's another good one:

Former U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt was clearly a strong-willed child and grew up to be a very strong-willed man. ... Franklin was very bossy with his peers and he liked to win at everything. When he was once scolded for the way he treated other children, he said, "Mummie, if I didn't give the orders, nothing would happen."