Being a Parent is hard...

I would never had thought that I would come to the day when I heard my Mother in my head "because I told you so" or "Eat this or nothing at all" or the best one " This hurts me more then it hurts you" grrr, but last night Kyle made us a very nice dinner of chicken and dumplings..yummy!!!! Alyssa thought other wise. We try and sit and have a family dinner at least 4 nights a week with Kyle going to school 2 nights a week it's just me and the kids but when he is there we all try and eat together, this is something that was a MUST in our house when growing up and I think the fact that we had that time to sit and eat and talk about our day has helped me have that open relationship I have with my parents. Well so we finished dinner at about 6:45 and Alyssa refused to eat so Kyle told her to sit there until she did, we all sat there with her and also cleaned up around her and she cried and gagged and said she did not like it. I told Kyle if she doesn't like it why does she have to eat it? He said he was not going to have a picky kid and she was going to eat it. He told her how lucky she was and how some kids don't have a house or food to eat and she went all into this story about a Snake eating thing...lol a little too much for a 5 year old to understand. Well finally it's 7:20 now and she is crying and begging not to eat it I am holding back tears in fear she is going to go to bed hungry, Kyle told her "You have 2 choices 1. eat or 2. go to bed" a quick response said "go to bed". Wow she is going to starve I thought, I looked at Kyle and gave "the look" and he said "No she has to learn" So Alyssa went off to bed at 7:42 and slept until 6:45 the next morning when I woke her to get ready for school and the first thing she said was "Mommy I'm hungry can we go to MC Donald's?". I said yes of course but also threw in there that this would teach her to eat her dinner and she said "or go to bed." Nice to know we taught her about options...lol. But really the hardest thing was Kyle was right and even though it was hard, we taught her a good lesson I feel, so basically I get the whole "This hurts me more then it hurts you" I use to hate when I heard that and thought no way it could be true, but now I see it really does. All I wanted to do was cry when Alyssa was crying and make her some mac and cheese, but I had to go along with Kyle because she needed to learn we don't run a restaurant at home. I know after she has to have time out or lose a toy or no TV for a day or two it hurts, but I have a big job here! I think if I had really thought about what the job of being a parent was I might have turned it down..lol I mean no interviews no behavioral questions, just 2 blue lines on a stick and bang!!! I love my kids don't get me wrong but man it so hard to be a parent!!!!