Trials of parenting a 3 (almost 4) year old...

Miss Payton has been in fine form recently. For the most part she is the cutest little thing... she will help Addie if she wants something, or keep her away from anything she shouldn't have, playing SO nice and quiet by herself in her room, singing, dancing around the house with Addie, going to bed like a good girl.... And then the fiesty, independent Payton trys to make us run for the hills! Dinner time is always a trial with Payton. She is a good breakfast and lunch eater, but dinner she could do without. The girl has never been into eating, and to get her to stop what she is doing to eat with us is like pulling teeth. She us up down, up down, around the kitchen, running around the living room, saying "I'm not hungry.", "I don't want to eat too much.", or the favorite it "I want to give you, daddy or my sister a hug and a kiss first.' ARGH. This we can almost deal with if we have hours for her to finish her dinner. She eventually will eat it, but she wants to take her sweet time doing it. We have attempted all the tricks in the book, and have gotten nowhere. And don't even get me started on the sassy mouth... What do you do when that sweet little face gets all scrunched up and says to you "NO, I DON"T WANT TO!"... Tonight we had a time out and she was getting more and more mad and loud at me because I was staying totally calm and just talking with her. Do we have a teenager living in our house or a 3 year old... We sorta skipped those "terrible twos", but seem to be making up for it now. I want her to be her own person, but geez what a pain in the @#$ it is:) We keep telling ourselves consistency, consistency, consistency... But any of you with kids out there know how difficult that can sometimes be!