Apology accepted

Emzilla and I had a minor battle this morning. I won. I think.

She has become picky about food. All of the sudden she won't eat the skin on apples, she just nibbles at things she loved before - you know, the usual toddler drama. Well, this morning, she wouldn't eat her breakfast. I gave her milk in her Minnie Mouse drink cup with a straw hoping that at least she will get some nutrients from the milk she loves - in her favorite cup, by the way...

Well the milk ended up all over Cassidy who was laying at her feet hoping for scraps - I don't think that was quite was Cassidy was looking for... You see, Emma loves to take a big gulp of milk, swish it around in her mouth as if she were cleaning out her teeth, then slowly spurt it out of her mouth all fountain like. I thought I had broken her of this messy habit, but it revisited us this morning. I took the milk away, cleaned the dog, and put Emma in a time-out in her room. I simply explained to her what she did wrong and asked her to say, "I'm sorry."

The conversation went something like this:

"Emma, you made Mommy sad. You spit the milk on Cassidy. That is bad. Emma is a bad girl. Please say I'm sorry."
"Mommy, ducks quack quack!" - pointing to the ducks on her shelf.
"Emma, no spitting milk. That's bad. Please say, I'm sorry."
"No! Emma play!"
"No, Emma will not play. Emma will lay in her bed until she says I'm sorry."

I put her in bed and closed the door. She immediately started howling, hopped out of bed and started banging on the door. I left her for 2 minutes then went inside and repeated the above conversation. She wouldn't say I'm sorry, so we repeated the lay in bed process. This went on for 45 MINUTES. I was determined to not let her win this one, even though I wanted to get out of the house... Finally after 45 minutes she gives me the most cheerful and fast and screechy, "I'm sorrrrrry!" I almost asked her what she was sorry for, but I didn't want to push it!