Mom's Need Resources: Love and Logic

I was talking with a girlfriend last night who has a 14 month old daughter, and their little angel is just starting to have a mind of her own.  As most toddlers, her favorite word is no, and as soon as you tell her to stop, she looks directly at you and goes ahead and does it anyways.  She wants to see if you really mean no, or if this is just some big person joke.  My friend commented on how well behaved and loving my children are (she did not see the nasty look Ben had given me 10 minutes prior when I said that in fact he couldn't have ice cream before dinner).  I told her how good that made me felt to hear her say that, but that I too had went through the exact same things with both of my children as she was experiencing now.  At that time in my parenting career another mommy friend of mine had suggested a book that truly helped me get through those toddler years, and then some.  I didn't want to be one of those mom's that were constantly yelling at their kids, or counting to 3 (or 5 or 10) to get their kids to behave.  Empty threats ("wait until your father gets home") are counterproductive, as your kids see your authority melt away with every threat for which you fail to follow through.  This book, called Love and Logic: Magic for Early Childhood helped me stop the yelling (except maybe when Hanna decided to paint lipstick on her baby brother with bright pink nail polish that she had found) and focus in on more constructive parenting.  No, these beautiful little creatures that we bring into this world don't come with owners manuals.  But if we employ the wisdom of other moms, and sometimes professional psychologists turn authors, we may be a little closer to handling those parenting challenges with grace and a little less gray hair :)