A whole new way to torture myself.

No, I'm not hanging out in front of a pastry display, stepping on the scale multiple times a week, walking by the expensive shoes in the mall, or looking up cookie recipes on the Betty Crocker website at 10:30 p.m.

I choose to invite much simpler, low-calorie and cheaper means of torture into my life. (Funny, though, because this particular torture I am about to speak of does make me want to go eat chocolate cake, buy some rockin' new shoes (by myself, thankyouverymuch) or indulge in some chewy, yummy cookies. My new torture has nothing to do with food, shopping, or eating.

So, what IS it, you ask?

TIME OUTS.

The time outs have increased by an insanely exponential amount in this house over the past two days, and I don't know who it's harder on - me, or Kaylee.

While we were on vacation a few weeks ago she started pinching - not too often, just here and there, and it really caught us off guard. She'd been so sweet and loving - hugging kids at the mall play land, being gentle, just being a nice kid. My child was not going to be the PINCHER! But, there she was. Pinching. Pinching me, her dad, her grandma.

Pinch, pinch, pinch. Pinchy, pinch pinch.

And boy, oh boy, she's been cranking it up a notch. She was pinching hard. She'd be acting super cute and then BAM! she'd give you a nasty old pinch.

We tried everything and nothing seemed to be working. And, it's so, so hard sometimes not to laugh because each pinch is preceded with the cutest little "Yow!" you ever heard accompanied, of course, with a very wide grin.

Now, we firmly tell her "NO PINCHING!" promptly set her in time out, and then walk away. We know it's helping a little bit.

The process now looks like this:

My once-angelic child approaches her victim wearing a very large and much too adorable grin. Her arm extends, pincher fingers prepare for action and she utters, "YOW" at the same time she pinches. More and more, this whole charade is followed by Kaylee shouting a resounding, "No!" and occasionally - she'll walk behind the couch, sit herself down, and hang her head in shame - putting herself in time out.

Tonight nearly pushed me over the edge, though. She'd pinch, I'd put her in time out. She'd sit there. She'd get up, walk over to me smiling, as if she's ready to carry on and have fun, and she'd pinch again. Lather, rinse, repeat 85 bajillion times. Are you getting the point? And, I'll have you know I had hot spaghetti and a slice of cheesy bread I was attempting to eat.

I could hardly take it. I wanted to throw my hands up and wave my white flag, but Dennis and I are committed to this crazy concept they call consistency. And even though the results we're getting are just baby steps, we'll keep on plugging away.

This whole parenting/discipline/helping your child become a decent human being business is ROUGH.

But, let me just add that we did get in about 10 minutes of pinch-free cuddle time before bed, and having a normal blood pressure again feels like a million bucks.