Phyllis, there was a hardware upgrade last night. The site was down for a short while, but it looks like some people still had problems this morning, too. Glad you made it finally.

Yes, it is normal. I never understood the whole terrible 2s concept. Three is ever so much harder! At 3, they do it on purpose and that is frustrating. Try to keep some perspective on what your goal is. You cannot control him. Your goal is to teach him to control himself. And, really, that is what he wants, to control his own world instead of having it controlled. He needs you to teach him how to do that and to accept the consequences of his choices. Sure, sometimes he is not going to make a good choice. He will make mistakes and learn from them. Keeping peace with 3s has a lot to do with choices. Sometimes between cereal or bagel for breakfast, sometimes between playing nicely or throwing your toys. Put his choice to him and stick with it. Choose between A and B, sometimes a C, but no more than that or your asking for trouble. So, cereal or bagel? I know, that's what you did. Stick to it, calmly. "Honey, that is what you chose when I asked you. I am not making another breakfast. Now you can eat that or wait until lunch." The control is up to him. He cannot control you, either, by they way. If he continues to argue, keep telling him his choices, do not add another. When he chooses between playing nicely or throwing toys, that is obviously not a choice you put to him, it's just a way of looking at what goes on in his mind. Let him know that choosing to throw toys means choosing the consequence that goes with it: sent to room and toy taken away. So, he can choose to play with it right, or not at all. He can choose to get dressed with help or without help. Lead him to his room, give him the clothes, and say "Do you want my help or are you doing it yourself?" He can choose to blow his nose with help or without. OK, sometimes I really only give mine the choice of "the easy way or the hard way?" Meaning, cooperate or I'm going to hold you down and wipe your nose. Or if does want to do it himself, he gets a turn then you get a turn. Teeth brushing is another one when we would take turns. I can so clearly remember when my now 8 y/o was 3. When he gave me a hard time, refused to cooperate, I put him in the bathroom and stood right outside the door. I said "Tell me when you are ready to cooperate." And every couple minutes I'd ask him again if was ready. Sooner or later he would say "I ready to copperate now." It cracked me up to hear him say that! It also helped to motivate him to cooperate by telling him what we were going to do after he got dressed, ate breakfast, whatever. "We're going to the store with the horse ride after we get dressed." Keeping in mind why they act this way, whether they need something physical (like sleep, a drink or a snack) or emotional (to test limits, assert independence, make choices on their own) helps you think clearly how you want to handle it. Try to think long term even when it's one incident at a time. Instead of thinking ONLY in terms of getting through this battle, think how this battle fits into the big picture of what you want him to learn. When you look at it that way you are more likely to be consistent, or pick the right battles. Think in terms of getting him to cooperate, not just obey. My vocabulary with my kids that age is "cooperate" and "good choice." I tell them they need to cooperate, they had time out until they chose to do so. When they did cooperate, I would tell them "good choice." Sometimes I gave them a choice between one thing they'd like and one they'd hate to help ensure the right choice: "Do you want to take a bath now or go straight to bed?" Naturally they chose they bath, I'd still say "good choice."

Nothing like the fragrance of Magnolias! It's almost lemony smelling. We were lucky enough to have wild ones on our property here (the big ones). The biggest is the closest to the house and it has several trunks on it, it's huge. What's really intriguing is, there is a native terrestrial orchid that grows under it and at night the flowers have a slight fragrance like the Magnolias. And it's not the Magnolias that the fragrance is coming from because these orchids only bloom in August when the trees are done blooming. Another thing is, occasionally when I open the front door to the house there is a very slight whiff of Magnolia flower fragrance that drifts in even when they aren't blooming.

Jasdip: That looks great. What a fun prize to win! Sleevendog: A wholesale produce distributor near us just started selling retail boxes. They post on Facebook when they are going to be available (it's not everyday) and show a photo and list of what will be included...no toilet paper in any of the pictures :) I signed up today for a box to pickup tomorrow. It includes 11 different fruits/veggies, multiples of some, for $20. You go to their drive-thru line and they load it into your vehicle. It's all done while wearing masks, hairnets, gloves, and doing contactless payments and order confirmation. It looked like they had 600 available and all were ordered in less than 5 hours. I'll see how it works tomorrow. The assortment shown included most all the produce items I was wishing I had. Some earlier ones had several items I have lots of so I did not get them. I'm surprised at how excited I am about tomorrow's pickup!