Alexis came home from daycare on Friday with a new phrase firmly etched into her vocabulary: You can't do that. Unfortunately, she only knows how to use it in the brattiest, snidest way possible. All weekend she's been using the phrase that pays as a means to get back at us when she's the one that has been busted for standing on the table, feeding her lunch to the Bulldog, taking her shoes off in the car just as we were pulling into the parking lot to go grocery shopping, or going double back flips off the chandelier. It has not gone over the way she was hoping. Instead of turning the situation around and getting off scott-free, it has resulted in her getting into even more trouble.

I think maybe she has finally caught on that she's wasting her breath. A little bit ago she decided it would be a fabulous idea to take the green Dots out of her mouth and try to hand the half chewed gummy sugar to somebody, anybody. I told her no, Daddy told her no, and I finally told her to either put them back in her mouth or throw them away. She looked at me, wagged her crusty green finger, and said, "You can't do that." I stared at her with my best "Knock it Off Now or Else Face." She tried to stare back, but instead found herself saying, "You can do that" as she marched her little behind to the trash can.

It's good to be the Mom.