There are some fights I just don't battle

You haven't seen hair until you've seen my three. At least the younger two can and will do their own.

Sure, I pick my battles. If I didn't I'd be always nagging about something and they'd stop listening. I've all but given up on their clothes. As long as they're clean, age appropriate, and conform to the school dress code (and mine), they can mix and match all they want.

And I finally bought them a PS2 for Christmas after saying "never" for years. My idea, they didn't beg at all, and they've been very good about it so far.

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Hair-brushing is something we inisted upon early on. Both my daughters have long and kind of complicated hair.

(See one of them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fishbowl_fish/240568761/ )

They have been known to grumble, but they always knew it just had to be done.

It helps to have some vintage Sesame Street clips from YouTube going while I do it. :)

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My son has awful hair. No matter how hard I try it rarely looks good for more than an hour. I've mostly given up, if you can't look like you just rolled out of bed at age 2 then when can you?

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My 17 month old daughter's hair is super curly like Andrea's daughter's - it looks positively ridiculous if I don't do something with it every morning.

Johnson & Johnson's No More Tangles is my friend. I buy it by the truckload.

Even with her "spway," it still hurts when I work the tangles to the ends. I try to get those when her hair is wet from bath. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. The nice thing about curly hair is that if it's mostly done, it looks done.

People comment on her beautiful curly hair wherever we go, though, so I must be doing something right. One of the first body parts she could point to on herself was "her curls."

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I'm pretty mellow about the hair too. It has to be brushed, but if they don't want ponies or what have you, I don't care.

There's the co-sleeping. My eight year old just got out of my bed this month because she finally wanted to and I just never cared enough to force the issue.

The one that makes my mom mental is the socks. I don't care if they match or not. Unless we're going to gramma's, because boy, she sure does.

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I stop battling/begging/bargaining with my kids for dinner time about a month ago. With my 5 year old step son it was so bad I didn't want to eat with him. So my husband and I came up with the idea of cleaning the table and picking up supper dishes and leftovers if the kids didn't want to clean their plates. Now if he turns his nose up, or does his gag thing I just remind him that he doesn't have to eat BUT he will have to sit at the table until everyone is done and help clean up everything before he can play. He usually nibbles while he waits resulting in him cleaning his plate so he doesn't have to clean up. My 3.5 year old has had to clean up 3 times since we started this and my 5 year old has done it 1 time. Meals are much more enjoyable now and we are all much happier and less stressed.

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I don't fight the shoe/clothes battle. My MIL, who watches my 3-year-old daughter, wants her to be fully clothed, complete with shoes and socks from the moment she gets up until bathtime. As far as I'm concerned, if we're just lounging around the house shoes are socks aren't needed. Heck, you won't catch me wearing 'em. For now clothing is optional, too. Let her prance about in her undies. That time for that is quickly drawing to a close. Sigh.

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My kid sister was generally an angel UNTIL it came time for the hair combing. You would think (and I suspect our neighbors did think) that I was slowly torturing her to death. I was extra careful, starting at the bottom and working up to reduce the painful tugging, but to no avail. I only put up with it because she had such thin hair, it would tie itself in a million knots and we'd ultimately end up having to shave it off. (We did once find a louse that she picked up at day care, so there is a reason for grooming fairly regularly.)

Finally I decided she was old enough to do her own hair most days. I would just do it on Sunday mornings before church. Outwardly this seemed to work fine, but she was just brushing the outside layer, so underneath, her hair was tangled and matted. Sunday mornings were the worst. But the other option was to have her screaming bloody murder seven days a week instead of just one.

Things got better when she was about seven. Her hair was thicker then, and we started cutting it short, so the tangles decreased and she could comb it properly by herself. Whew!

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My son has very fine blond hair that just grows and grows like crazy. I chop at it every now and again, but we rarely go and get it cut. It drives my MIL absolutely crazy, since if it's more than an inch long, she swears he needs a haircut and will badger me until I give in, and say "Fine!! YOU take him and get it cut!!" because he's three, and if you can't have messy hair when you're three, the world just ain't right.

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