Project idea: let's make a complaints box!

Sophia's has never been shy about voicing her opinions but lately she's been particularly vocal -- and if she doesn't get her way, particularly grouchy. She's been a textbook kid -- always doing things almost exactly to the day as when the baby books told me to expect them. E.g., sitting up at almost exactly 6 months old, taking her first steps one day after her first birthday, etc. The Terrible Two's, we're told, are when toddlers start to understand that they can exhibit some control and attempt to do so by using the word "No." Here we had our first major delay, and I thought maybe we'd be off the hook.

Not so.

She's still a delightful child who is (almost always) a joy to be around but we have our occasional challenges. For one, she's complaining. A lot. "I don't want to go to school!" Why don't you want to go, Sophia? "I just don't want to" is the most common response, but I've also heard "The boys fight" or "They don't let us watch DVDs."

Most children awake at about 6am so many parents might consider 8am mid-day. Am I the only person actually pulling her child out of bed in order to rush the 9 blocks to school and be there before they lock the doors at 9am? She wakes up crabby and asks one of two questions: Is it a school day? and/or Is it a taekwando day?

Almost without fail on taekwando days we hear, "I don't want to go to taekwando!" We got her a "Mulan" DVD hoping that perhaps watching a girl fight would make martial arts more attractive. It's not working and now I have to keep fielding questions about why the Huns were so mean.

To make matters worse, she uses her ferocious voice to make many of her complaints. There's a scene in "Despicable Me" where the youngest little girl says in her ferocious voice, "It's so fluffy!" and I laughed until I cried. (Here it is: http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/22/despicable-me-new-trailer-moon-gru-kids/) Ever since then Sophia's been using her ferocious voice, mostly for comic effect, but also to voice her displeasure.

Another phase we're in: she loves to talk about people who "aren't so nice." These are people like Captain Hook in "Peter Pan," Tank in "Surf's Up" and the Huns (who attack the Chinese) in "Mulan." She doesn't watch much but constantly wants to talk about movies. She loves asking why one of the characters did something, or reacted one way even when (or especially when) she knows the answers.

If only she could write, we'd make a project of decorating a complaints box and we could go from there.

Here are a couple of recent zingers from Miss Sophia:

In Las Vegas while visiting her great grandmother and grandma, we're in a restaurant and she's coloring a wart hog in her "Jungle Book" coloring book. We just got a dog so we've been talking about pets, and I asked her if she wanted a pet wart hog. She looks up with an indignant expression and says loudly, "I will not have this conversation!"

Also in Las Vegas, she has a minor pee-pee accident. She knows that if we catch her having had an accident and she didn't report it or if she lies about it she gets a little smack on the rear, so she announces it each time and then adds, "But I be honest."

A couple of months ago, she's about to open the front door when Sebastian catches her and asks what she's doing. She responded, "Papa, you're just going to have to trust me." She opens the door, steps outside onto the front stoop and comes back in saying, "I had to check something."