I like to consider myself a reasonable parent. We practice gentle disciple and offer loving guidance. We encourage respect and the proper use of manners. I’ll eagerly honor requests when they are asked politely, in a sweet tone and especially when there’s something in it for me.

Maxine woke up in the middle of the night last night politely asking for water. Ava’s unconscious heard this request and she immediately woke up asking for water too. I was groggy but knew that there would be no going back to sleep until pint sized thirsts were quenched. I pulled myself out of bed and pressed my near sighted eyes to the bed side clock to see what time it was before stumbling downstairs to fetch two glasses of water.

When I returned, Ava asked innocently if her water was cold.

“Yes, it’s cold.”

Maxine asked “Is mine cold too?”

“Yes, yours is cold too.”

“Where are da ice cubes? I want ice cubes!”

If sweet requests allow me get out bed at 2:32 AM, angry demands bolt my feet to the floor. Or more specifically, shouts for ice cubes in the dark fasten my body to the bed. A) the water is already is cold and 2) she wouldn’t have even thought about ice cubes if Ava wouldn’t have brought up the subject of water temperature in the first place.

I laid back down and the wailing for ice cubes continued. Of course it would – she’s three. She’s not going to realize “oh, you’re right, my water is cold, this is fine. At least mom was nice enough to get me water. I’ll just drink it so we can all go merrily back to sleep.” Being three is much like being a man in the drivers seat or with a remote in his hand – it’s all about control. They don’t call it the Terrible Two’s because they are terribly hard to please when they when they are two. It’s called the Terrible Two’s because this stage lasts two years.

The crying for ice cubes ebbed and flowed. It would be quiet long enough to allow us to doze back to sleep only for the ice cube wails to return in varying forms of intensity and shrillness.

My mature (debatable) adult mind knows that we’ll all get back to sleep sooner if I would just get up and get her some ice cubes. This is not something that’s worth the power struggle. I’m not worried that getting her ice cubes is going to spoil her; it’s my sleepy stubborn self that refused to let me get up for a second time. The only place I was going to get ice cubes from was hell – so just as soon as hell froze over I would get up again to get ice cubes. Until then, cold, ice cube-less water was going to have to suffice.

More crying over ice cube injustice, hell was getting it’s first frost when Zak finally cried Uncle and went down to fetch ice cubes.

He returned and he handed Maxine her glass with ice cubes in it. As she drank it in the dark he asked her if she knew how many ice cubes were in the glass.

No reply.

“Three”, he told her.

“Three?!” she said, “That’s how many I am!”

Ya don’t say.

I had trouble falling back to sleep after the Disney Princess on Ice show and this would be the reason why I slept until well after 7 this morning. By the time Zak got back from swimming laps I had 20 minute to ride. It was too warm and beautiful this morning to pass up altogether so I took my twenty minutes and rode like I stole something.

Jillian A LA 30 Day Shred: If you’ve only got 20 minutes, Make. It. Count.

I’m on it.

I flew around town riding faster than usual, aiming for every hill in a 3 mile radius of the house to climb like I was in a spin class. I was back in 24 minutes and rode 6.5 miles. My usual mph around 14, today my average was 16 mph.

I really want a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week, so I handed the relay baton off to Zak as he sped off to work and I did 10 or so minutes of body weight exercises. Push ups, jump squats, various ab exercises. I don’t really count reps when I do body weight exercises, I just do it until it really starts to suck and then I do two more.

The only thing GREEN I had to eat yesterday was the diced green pepper in my vegetarian sloppy joes. Green was definitely on the menu for breakfast. I didn’t feel like juicing, so that means green smoothie here I come!

Except the blueberries and spinach played Rock, Paper, Scissors in the blender. Blueberries was Paper and spinach was Rock. Of course Paper totally covers Rock and my green smoothie had no choice but to be mainly blue.

A banana, unsweetened vanilla hemp milk, a bunch of frozen blueberries, a handful of fresh spinach and 2 Tbsp of chia seeds.

Scary action shot!

Those chia seeds form a weird gel around them when they get wet and they gave the smoothie such an interesting texture.

And I don’t even care that my smoothie didn’t have ice cubes in it this morning! Way to go me!