PYB

PYB stands for "Pick Your Battles, " which is a lesson I'm always learning as a mom. You have to really decide what is most important, and sometimes that changes from child to child, but you have to know when to stop and just hope that the child will finally come to (in the case of our family) her senses and make it right. I'm pretty picky, so I guess I battle quite a bit, but this winter I've fought a battle and finally just waved a white flag in defeat.

The battle is this:

Lisi wearing a coat.

Now this shouldn't be a big deal, but Lisi is almost 4 and like my other children is pretty stubborn (don't know where they get that from), and pretty opinionated (again, don't know where they get that from), and we've decided is pretty warm-blooded (does not get that from me!). She is perfectly happy walking around in 20 degree weather (or less!) with just a long-sleeved shirt and leggings, the jean obsession from last winter turned into a "soft pants" only one. She refuses to wear a sweater and definately no coat! I've conceded to always having her coat in my car (just in case!) and carrying it with me everywhere I go with her, just in case.

Last week I was checking out of a store with Lisi, the weather was awful and cold (surprise! like our whole winter has been), and of course Lisi wasn't wearing a coat. The great-grandmotherly lady helping me, bless her heart, asked why my daughter wasn't wearing a coat. Me: Because she doesn't want to. She replied: Don't you fight her about it? Me: No, I don't. This sweet lady could only shake her head at me, couldn't even look at me again, and could barely hand me my bag, apparently so disgusted with my parenting skills. Really.

But what she doesn't know is that all my children are opinionated and stubborn and really, you can't catch a cold by not wearing a coat and that if I spent my day fighting my almost 4-year-old about wearing a coat in sub-freezing weather I wouldn't have any energy left to fight her (and the other 2) on things that really matter. So I choose not to worry about whether or not she wears a coat. I just carry it around with me. Just in case.

This weekend it snowed/iced/I don't know quite what the weather was doing, but the kids wanted to play outside in it. Everyone else bundled up, but Lisi--no surprise--refused to wear a coat, she wanted to go outside in her short-sleeved shirt and leggings (she'd taken off her velour jacket that was initially over the shirt earlier because she was too hot). I let her, I didn't say a single thing, I just watched her running after her sisters in the freezing cold, as usual I had her jacket ready, just in case. Within about 5 minutes she was back in the house asking for a coat and gloves. Score one for me!