I have a hard time articulating to grandparents, friends, etc, who aren't currently parenting a three year old themselves (you understand this though, Rachel!) why Claire can be so challenging and make my blood pressure go through the roof in a split second. Because, in reality, she's wonderful like 92% of the time. She's affectionate and playful and tender-hearted and mostly obedient and hilarious and smart and creative and observant and helpful most of the time. Which is why her three-ness outbreaks cause the world to spin until the three-ness gets under wraps again.
Let me illustrate this.
Yesterday afternoon we went to the mall (as you may have read in my previous post). Both children behaved wonderfully. We enjoyed our time together and I was proud of them. Claire and Max were talking sweetly to each other in the backseat and I was enjoying listening to them and the music on the radio. A song came on that both Claire and I like and I turned it up just a notch.
Claire: "Mom, is this our song????"
I didn't know we had "a song".
Me: "Sure, honey, this is our song."
Claire: "NOOOOO!! It's NOOOTTTTTTTT our song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (while whining, screaming, and kicking the back of my seat repeatedly)
Me: "Ok! It's not our song!"
Claire: "BUT MOM! MOOOOMMMMMM!!!!! BUT IS IT OUR SONG?!?!?!?!?!"
Me: "I don't know if it's our song!! Do you want it to be our song???"
Claire: "IT'S NOT OUR SOOONNNNGGGGG!!!!" (still whining, screaming, and kicking my seat)
Me: "I understand! It's not our song!"
Claire: "I WANT OUR SONNNGGG!!!!"
Me: stop talking. There's no beating three-ness. Deep breathes. In and out.
And just like that, it was over. And back to flying unicorns, puppies and rainbows. And that, my friends, is three.
3 comments:
Oh, Whit! I hope you don't take offense to the fact that I laughed out loud at this post. It hits so close to home :-) love your quote that 2 has got nothing on 3! Thanks for the smile and thank goodness for our girls and all of their three-ness!
This is hilarious and scary at the same time. Brody is 2 and I had an extremely similar experience to this last night in the car!! I was cracking up though since I had just read your story of Claire. If 2 has got nothing on 3, I fear for what my next year looks like.
This is a GREAT preview. I'm really glad when this hits - whenever it does with Miss K - I'll be able to remember this post and that it's not just us! I'm glad though, even in its intensity, that it only happens 8% of the time (for your sake!) You are a fantastic mama!!
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