Oh Lil...

So here's a pic of my girl and my guy at our Battalion picnic last week, where Lil took second place in the costume contest in her age group. Her face says so much. She has hit a new stage/phase (whatever) where she is a doll when we are around other people and she is entertained. But during the day, when it is just her and me, she refuses to play nicely by herself and heaven forbid I put her down and walk out of the room. She has discovered how to scream.

I thought I would just ignore it. When she realized that screaming and pitching a fit wouldn't get her what she wanted she would stop. Boy was I wrong. That just makes her madder. The poor kid is going to scream herself hoarse. I was making dinner this evening, before Jacob and one of his LTs got home, and Lily was on the rug in the kitchen with me just bawling. I'm talking to her the whole time; telling her what I am doing, telling her crying like that is not okay, telling her that I can pick her up again when I am done. I finally had to put her in her crib, I just couldn't get anything done. When she finally stopped screaming (fortunately I was done) I went back and picked her up. Is she too little to understand a time out? Is that essentially what I did to her? Any ideas?

Sometimes it's so bad, she doesn't even want me to just sit on the floor with her... she wants to be in arms or in my lap. This cannot fly in our house. I've got crafty things to be doing people!