Hey, have we talked about 3.5-year-olds? They are mystifying, awesome, terrible creatures. One minute, cuddly, hilarious, helpful, and sweet. The next, swinging at you with fists of fury and SPITTING because of some unintended slight. Woe betide the mama who BUCKLES THE TOP BUCKLES!!! Unless, of course, she wants me to buckle her top buckle.
Two things have helped shore up my stores of patience: treating her like a slightly deranged person [ie: never rushing her, asking about preferences before doing (cf: "do you want to snap your top buckles?"), and never ever ever rushing her, again] and re-framing tantrums as "emotion storms," which makes me feel a bit like a hippy-woo-touchy-feely-parent but also forces me to remember that we are, in fact, dealing with a creature who knows not, not always, how to modulate her reactions and emotions. Who will make a mountain out of a you-didn't-get-me-the-kind-of-popsicle-I-wanted-molehill. Sort of like me before all of my years of therapy and yoga, but my emotion storms were all internal. Except for that one time in Boston I had to pull over my car and kick things. But that's a story for another time!
Ahem.
Last week was especially challenging on the toddler-care front; I am not sure why. Perhaps we are both tired. Perhaps she is having a growth spurt. Perhaps I am not eating enough or drinking enough water. Perhaps we are both just having a week where we are both assholes. There has been too much shouting and too many tears. Too much purposeful ignoring. Too much threatening and stomping and goddamnit-I-JUST-NEED-SOME-SPACE-ing.
It's both of us, but I guess it is really mostly me. I need to shift my attitude, I need to get more sleep, I need to remember that she is just small, and figuring everything out, and also? That she is my hilarious, sweet, goofball, first baby.
WHEREIN I GO STRAIGHT-UP MOMMY BLOGGER BECAUSE KIDS THEY SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS AND YES YOU WILL READ WHAT MINE SAYS AND LAUGH BECAUSE I SAID SO:
One afternoon, she told me, in the blandest conversational tone, I told Cooper, "Penis Company." I paused. You said what? I asked. I told Cooper, "Penis Company," she said again. I boggled for a moment, then asked, well what did you MEAN by that? Use those words in a sentence. She sighed, gave me the slightest hint of an eye-roll, and just said again, PENIS COMPANY. As if this was something everyone knew. Her friend Cooper knows now, I guess.
However, the adults in our house still haven't figured this one out, and since we haven't had a note from her preschool teacher, we're leaving it alone. Though. Sometimes I will nudge Tim in the middle of the night and say PENIS COMPANY and start laughing, because I am a big jerk.
THING SHE SAID THAT YOU MAKE YOU LAUGH UNLESS YOU HATE HAPPINESS AND ARE A COMMUNIST TAKE 2:
We have started Little A. in swim lessons, because she is hard-core loving the pool this year, and I am equal parts happy and terrified about that. Happy: I love to swim and it is one of the few sport-type things I feel like I do well, so we can share this. Terrified: Water. Toddlers. I need not say more.
So anyway, to the local pool/Red Cross Swim lessons she goes, and every week she is excited to show off what she has learned. This week, during our post-dinner post-lesson swim, she tucked her pool noodle under her arms, leaned slightly to the side, and did an enthusiastic scissor kick. And yelled BOOTY CHANT! BOOTY CHANCE! BOOTY SHANK!
Again I stopped agog. Did you learn that at your swim lesson? I asked. No, it is my own special swim, she said back. And then swam and shouted BOOTY CHAMP BOOTY SHANK over and over until I declared swim time was over and wrestled her out of the pool and into the shower and into bed whereupon she alternately shrieked and kicked and shouted she was not tired and snuggled and sighed and said I love you bigger than all the moons and stars Mama.
Because that is a 3.5 year old. I am so lucky to have one.
xoxo, A
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