"I'm going to give you a hard time."

Now with two kids, we have to divvy up the parenting duties a bit. Audge has been putting Bella to bed for the past few nights but suddenly she’s been giving her trouble. Toddler behavior. Having a toddler is like living with a bipolar Tasmanian devil. Everything’s fine… tick tick tick tick boom!

One night I said to Bella, “mommy’s putting you to bed tonight, and don’t give her a hard time.” “Okay” she replied. Audge got her to bed and settled and was about to read to her. Bella looked at her and said, ”I’m going to give you a hard time.” And she did. And the end of reading time I had to go in and put her to bed.

It amazed me that at three and a half our daughter was aware of her bad behavior, and knew what to call it. This is the mistake a lot of parents make. Thinking kids don’t know what they’re doing. They know exactly what they’re doing. It’s like they’ve already read “The Prince” by Machiavelli before they’re two.

So now I’m a bit more suspicious of my daughter’s behavior. What’s she up to? Is she hiding something? Does she think this will somehow lead to ice cream? It’s like a toddler episode of "24" .

So we don’t underestimate our toddler anymore. She’s too smart. In fact, it makes sense, it’s when their brain is developing and the most active. Our adult brains are dulled from mind numbingly boring jobs, cable news channels and processed foods in easy to carry wrappers. Looks like we’re going to have to step up our mental game.