The Wars We Wage

In case you haven't spent a lot of time with a 1 and 11/12ths year-old lately, let me invite you into a slice of our life.  So far today has been an average day - Nory isn't sick, got plenty of sleep, and woke up in a good mood.  She is happy and has tons of energy and ran around putting her babies to bed and singing a mix of the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee.  Yet, here are some of the wars we have waged this morning already (most of these involved screaming):

• Nory wanted the sharpie from Mommy's bathroom (mommy wins)
• Nory absolutely had to wear her blue American Flag socks instead of her pink socks (Nory wins)
• Nory spotted the crackers in the diaper bag that I had packed for the library and had to eat them Right Now (Nory wins, but I did get her to say "crackers please" instead of just scream, which seemed like a reasonable compromise at the time)
• Nory wanted to ride in the little stroller instead of the big stroller when we walked the dog this morning (mommy wins)
• Nory pulled my orange shirt out of the closet, off the hanger, and then tried to take my brown shirt off of me and make me wear the orange one (Nory wins, yes, even though the orange shirt doesn't come anywhere near fitting anymore.  And she keeps lifting up my sweatshirt to make sure that the orange shirt is still under there.)
• Nory wanted to dump her cheerios all over the floor at the library (mommy wins)
• Nory wanted to ride in the big part of the shopping cart at Costco (mommy wins)
• Nory freaked out when I put a giant chair mat in the cart at Costco and told me to take it out (mommy wins)
• Nory spotted leftover birthday cake in the fridge and wanted it for lunch (mommy wins)
• Nory wanted to nap with her stuffed penguin, baby doll, stuffed kiwi, stuffed otter, two books, three binkies, and her "CD player" (Nory wins)

I feel like our life is a constant game of Is It Worth The Battle.  Parenting is exhausting.   A hundred choices made every day which are turning her into the person she will be.  I like to imagine that my daughter is just really advanced, and hit the terrible twos early.  I worry that I'm not doing it right.  I worry that I give in too often.  In my mind, if I can get her to stop screaming and ask nicely for what she wants (as in, "crackers please mommy"), then I feel a lot better about caving.  But I am sure it is confusing to her to have me sometimes say "no" and sometimes say "yes" when she demands something.

I'm sure having a baby brother will make everything easier...