For the past week Violet has been rattling my brain and testing every parenting skill I have — small as they may be.

On Monday night she had a softball game – and it turns out that this year Violet is quite good at softball (she’s also the oldest on her team . . .). I was home with Sarah and John so I missed her antics, but my husband called me he was so angry with her.

She kept asking for snacks and when he’d bring them to her she’d say, “Oh, I don’t want that any more.” She did it three times. Maybe because she was around her friends and was getting cocky? Because she noticed that the coaches on the other team were moving their girls back when she got up to bat? I don’t know, but she was so rude to him. Then she got the game ball – which is incredibly cool, but only fed her ego. On the way home he told her he didn’t think she should play softball anymore. The plan was for me to ‘talk’ him out of it. Good cop/bad cop style.

The problem? When she came stomping and grunting into the house she wouldn’t even talk to me. I let her go upstairs to calm down. Only she didn’t calm down. At the prodding of my husband I went up there, which was such a bad, bad idea.

Oh, so bad.

It ended with her throwing a pillow across the room and a spanking.

So, so bad.

At one point I asked her, “Do you think you’re that good? That you’re so good you can treat us this way?”

And she said yes.

Oh.My.

So, yeah.

I’m so upset that it ended in a spanking. We haven’t spanked her in I don’t even know how long. It’s not something we do anymore. She’s too old. We don’t like to parent that way anymore.

But there you have it.