Three children in and I thought I had age two mastered. I foolishly imagined I had age two strategies all prepared and at the first sign of trouble I would go into well experienced Mum mode and my toddler would fall into line. Wrong.

Wonder Girl is something else entirely. With Super Kid and Robo Boy I would say no with my firmest voice and they would usually listen. If not I would count to five and then they would listen. Although to be fair I’ve often wondered why simply counting made my children do what they’re told, like seriously, numbers scare you kids? If that didn’t work then I pulled out the big guns and gave them consequence. Stuff as terrifying as “if you don’t get into your car seat then I will do it for you” which to a toddler is corporal punishment.

Well Wonder Girl, she laughs in the face of the numbers one to five. She has no regard for consequence and she never learns from her mistakes. She is a bad ass.

So on Tuesday when Wonder Girl and I hit our local retail park to buy the kids some clothes, she was on form. Firstly she was feral, in the blink of an eye she’d left my side and headed off into the shop to find her own joy. Find it she did when she eyeballed a display that had “climb me small child” written all over it. So I grabbed her just in time and gave her my firmest “no”.  Her reaction? She giggled, just giggled and then turned her bad ass back on me to continue to climb.

In another shop I turn my back for less than a minute and she vanishes. After an agonising search I find her in the toy section merrily playing. So I decide she needs to hold my hand, it’s the only way I can ensure she doesn’t give me the slip again. She does not want to hold my hand and there is no way to make an unwilling participant hand hold, not possible. So I grab her arm and march her out of that shop.

I need to visit one more shop so I drag her along, arm held as she begins to have a melt down. She is looking me in the eye screaming “you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble” over and over again. She’s right, with her tenacity I really am “in trouble”.

Shopping done and Wonder Girl wrestled into car seat, strapped in and sobbing in the back of the car my heart feels pretty heavy. Then she stops crying looks at me and announces “I choose it CD, then we go park” and she smiles. Yes at the moment Wonder Girl is taking over my world.