Maybe I should just throw in the towel

Obviously I know the saying, "you have to pick your battles". There are somethings that don't matter in the grand scheme of things. I recently picked, and lost, 2 battles that I thought were fairly important. This leaves me wondering, do I even pick any battles with Nina? She was blessed with a ginormously strong will and she has an equally strong determination to keep trying until she gets what she wants. Was I being too controlling with these two battles?

#1

It was like 6 degrees outside when we were trying to take Donovan and Howie to school. I had Nina dressed in pants, a long sleeved shirt, shoes and socks and a jacket. She told me she hated those clothes "so much", but I told her she had to wear them outside. I also told her she could change when we got back home, but that didn't seem to sit well with her. As I'm ushering the kids outside, I turn and find this:



Yeah, we didn't walk to school this time. Round one to Nina.

#2

Last night as I was putting Nina to bed she was complaining about how thirsty she was. I gave her a small drink of water and that held her over for maybe 2 minutes. Then I gave her a sippee cup to drink until I finished reading to the other kids. I went back, took the cup (which was almost gone) and put it away. She was not happy, but I closed the door and she eventually quieted down and fell asleep. However, at 4 in the morning, Matt woke up and noticed several lights on. He went downstairs and found this:



Who knows how long this door was open, could have been 5 hours or 5 minutes. Round 2 to Nina.