31 months - "nonsense"

my heart always melts when she tells me in between sobbing during a meltdown that "i don't want to be nonsense". not "i am / i am is not nonsense", or "i don't want to stand in the naughty corner" but "i don't want to be nonsense". 

it happened recently when she INSISTED i had to let her open the door while we were laden with groceries and the door had already been opened. was one of those irreversible situations and she went on and on crying and asking me "why you open the door first, why you don't let me open the door". we did suggest alternatives and explained it to her repeatedly but she was in major meltdown mode. 

those lines came after much stern warning and counting to 5's to stop her from bringing the house down with her loud crying, but it shows that there's a part of her that wants to be good, knows she is wrong and doesn't want to be that way. 

it made me go all soft. couldn't be stern anymore after that and even reassured her that she was a good girl (she is!) a lot of the time.