Sometimes I do not want to cuddle. Toddler does not understand but their stuffed animals apparently do.

I'm a single parent to an almost three year old who lives to cuddle. Constantly.Lately there are times I just don't want to be touched, and I turn down cuddles. Cue absolute meltdown from the kid. I try to explain that when someone says no to cuddles it's ok to be upset but not ok to force touch.Of course a two year old does not understand this and usually if I can't redirect them to something else we end up cuddling anyway. But today when I relented to forced cuddles after several attempts at alternatives, they started playing pretend with their stuffed animals on my lap."No penguin, I don't want cuddles. That Ok dinosaur! We not cuddle right now."The penguin and dinosaur repeated this little performance in different ways for the whole cuddle time. As touched out as I was, I still enjoyed the time because of it.I have some hope that the kid is starting to understand how to respect people's boundaries, even if they don't respect mine at all. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2YRQ7r1