Welcome to parenting a toddler LOL. With parents they know their boundaries, and as they start to grow their boundaries need to change where as we as parents are often the last to figure that out LOL. Matilda has done all of the same behaviours just less than a year ago. But most of her "no" came from dangerous activities where we couldn't "let it slide" so she would try to pull things off the stove, and would climb up the change table & jump off. The sorts of things that would hurt herself.

We had to become something we weren't used to and that was consistent. We had to say "no" and if she didn't listen to us, we would hold her hands and get at her level and say "Matilda you can't do that because _______, if you do that again, ____ *consequence*___" . So our consequences really depended on what it was she did. If she did something very dangerous that we couldn't remove (so climbing up the stove etc) we would have a 1 minute time out. This was a joke at first because she wouldn't stay there and thought it was hilarious, but the more consistent we were (sometimes it took 30 minutes to do a 1 minute time out).... the more she understood that. At the end of the time out we would say "Matilda, you had to sit still for 1 minute because you wouldn't listen to Mummy/Daddy. I love you but I don't like it when you do something where you could hurt yourself. Please say sorry & we can have a cuddle" Now all we have to do is threaten time out or say "Matilda if you continue to do XXX you will have to go to time out, why don't we try something else like XXX (and I stop what I am doing and try to engage her in something else) and she usually is happy to be distracted.

None of this is natural for us. We both would much rather ignore bad behaviour and praise the good stuff, but sometimes that just isn't possible because its not healthy for them or good for them to do things that they will hurt themselves at. ETA: We don't believe in smacking and the few times we tried it out of desperation she laughed at us. She too had a fetish for power points & atm our house has every power point either covered or with furniture blocking it to make life easier.

The kicking... we have had this issue for ages & ages. We stopped using the change table because it was just the worst height to have to deal with it & now do changes on a rug on the ground, or on the lounge on a towel. We occupy Matilda by using the TV, a book or something else (even a treat sometimes) to get her to focus on something else than we are doing. Books used to work great but then she started throwing them at us & kicking, so we turned the TV on and that worked too for 5 minutes.... LOL

Now I usually give her a small book, turn the TV on and sing her a song... hehehe... all to protect the belly. And we are generally kick free most nappy changes.

ETA: I keep thinking about this & wanting to add things LOL... I have to say that these things have all taken time & work with Matilda. I have had all my buttons pushed (have a look at my parenting de-brief Here) and have been in tears most of the time. No, Matilda didn't understand everything we were doing at first BUT... she learnt & now its not as bad a fight for the "no's". We also have worked on picking our battles. So if there is something we can ignore that we aren't working on atm, when she is asleep we either remove it from the general house area or we move things to avoid the battle next time.... our house is extremely toddler proofed and totally hilarious if you come to visit...