I said no, fully expecting to then battle the inevitable wave of arguments and tears that always follow Skye’s least-favorite word. After all, I was refusing to acquiesce to a request that she has thrown furniture over being denied in the past. Even if the chair was child-sized, and plastic, it was still up on the list of “Skye’s Worst Toddler Freak-Outs.”

Instead she did something that was so surprising and unexpected, I actually felt my jaw drop.

“Okay Mom,” she said, “maybe later I can play on your phone.” Then she turned around and walked back down the hallway to continue playing in her room.

I stood stock still in the kitchen and watched her go. I was frozen like a cartoon character, wide-eyed and mouth agape, waiting for the fight that never came. I was all ready to dole out my calming tactics, and when those didn’t work, my bad-mom bribing techniques. When faced with such easy obedience, I didn’t even know what to do.

This is not to say that my child is normally a complete hellion – though there have been times in the last two or three years when I’ve thought a child exorcism might be necessary.

Skye has been a toddler much like many others, or at least that’s what I’ve continuously told myself to get to sleep at night. She has pushed her limits, and mommy’s buttons, every chance she’s had. She has enjoyed a three-year-long vendetta against the word “no” and any of it’s close relatives. She has been carried screaming and kicking out of multiple restaurants to go spend dinner with mom in the car. I have never spanked my child, but my god were there times in the last three years that I’ve wanted to.

People always say two is the worst. Really though, two is a cakewalk compared to three, and absolutely nothing could be as bad as four.

As a young, first-time parent everybody warns you about the “toddler stage,” the dreaded time period when your kid goes from a squishy baby who babbles and usually only cries for reasonable needs, to a tiny human who can talk back with attitude and who cries for virtually any reason they please. What they never really do is tell you just how to survive it.

To me, discipline is by far the hardest part of being a parent. We want to give our children everything this world can offer, while simultaneously raising people without a sense of entitlement or disregard for rules. Saying the word no, and then sticking to it, is probably the most challenging thing I do on any given day. Sometimes, hell most of the time, it would be so much easier to just give in and make the tantrum stop. Happy kid, non-homicidal mom, everybody wins.

Except everybody doesn’t win, especially not my daughter. Every time we battle it out and I hold my ground, she learns more about being the kind of person I want her to be.

Skye is just over a month shy of her fifth birthday, but already the curse of age four seems to be lifting. Lately she’s been listening better, melting down less, and accepting punishments without any added drama. I won’t claim perfection, because I’m not completely delusional, although I do think I can claim improvement. I’m almost afraid to say it, but I think I may have survived my toddler.

I feel a little sad as Skye’s toddler stage comes to a close, and those are words I never thought I’d say. The sadness comes from the ending of another stage in her development, another group of milestone years that have come and gone and will never be back again.

The time of the toddler is ending for Skye, and we have a number of years before the teenage tirades begin. Until then we’re somewhere in the middle, the in-between.

I’m not sure if whatever’s next will be easier or more difficult to survive than the last three years have been. I just know that I will get through. I will survive them just like I have the last four years, with my daughter right by my side.