Looking For Advice.

Our daughter is 5. She's very smart and perfectly capable of picking up her own toys and cleaning her own messes. 

However, she pitches a MASSIVE fit when asked to do so, and what should be a very simple 2-minute tidying project becomes a 2-day battle. 

What am I doing wrong? How do I find the way to get through to her that if she has made the mess she can clean up the mess? 

We have taken away privileges and certain toys as punishments, but she just goes and finds other things to play with and gets into even more trouble. 

We've tried rewards. "After you've picked up all of your dollies, you can watch one Bubble Guppies."

I've tried ignoring her, yelling at her, whispering to her, singing to her, talking to her, and nothing helps. 

She collapses on the floor in a tantrum state when asked to do the simplest of projects. 

Put your books back on the shelf. "But that will take FOREVER!!", she wails. Well, not if you just go do it. 

We even help by giving her very small and specific tasks. Put your clothes in your hamper. Put your dress-up clothes in your chest. Put your barbies in their bin. Put your stuffed animals in the basket. She just seems to flat-out refuse. 

So... I'm asking for help. What do we do? How do I get her to help clean up her messes? I'm at a loss. 

Pedicure Lovin'

I'm sitting in the salon getting my nails done and figured I'm do a little blogging while my hands are free. 

It's very hard for me to ask for "extra's". I want fancy toes today and I picked a picture from Pinterest that I love. I asked about it and they said yes, but it's going to cost extra. That's fine I get it. But because my pinky toenail is so itty bitty, the manager told me it didn't make sense for me to get the polka-dots on all of my toes because you wouldn't be able to see the color after the dots were applied. 

We went back and forth, I was suddenly embarrassed that I had asked for something special, and decided I'd just do a single color and polka dots on my big toe only. 

But then after thinking about it, I decided I really want my rainbow toes and dots. So, I'll do the rainbow toes with dots on my big toe only, then solid fingernails with a pretty design on my them. We'll see. The nail on my right middle finger is shorter than all the rest, so they might have another idea for me once they get to my hands. 

Stay tuned.