Nobody talks about terrible threes. We all know about the
term ‘terrible twos’ and I wonder why they didn’t think of inventing the term terrible
threes. Because the truth is that after terrible twos, it doesn’t get better at
all. In fact, it gets messy and terrifying when a toddler steps into the phase
of threes.
Now you know why I am talking about this? I am there, you
guessed it right. I can show it to you (well, in words) rather than just
telling you about it.
As Wednesdays happen to be my toddler’s day at home, I always
try to plan at least half the day outside, so we don’t end up pulling each
other’s hair (which usually happens 80% of the time). But the problem with
letting my toddler outside comes with a new set of challenges. Gone were the
days when my little munchkin was a defenseless infant who would get hit by
other kids often and I had to protect him all the time. Now, my major time is spent
in protecting other kids because my toddler is ready to attack anytime wants to
use his arms and legs effectively. Perhaps, it’s a part of being a toddler
where in he gets curious to see how it feels to touch other kids or simply push
them around.
But this is also the time when you want to bombard the
toddler with rules which he breaks every single time. I put down my foot and
made it very clear that if he were to touch or push any kid, we would return
home from his usually story time session. He seemed to understand this and
nodded and promised to comply by the rules. For an added measure, I had my
husband also do some lecturing.
Today, when I entered the little classroom where all toddler
of ages one to four come with their parents for a story time session, I whispered
a silent prayer (I do that almost every Wednesdays) for a peaceful hour. The
good news is that my toddler did manage not to touch, hit or push any other kid
(Yay!) but the flip side is that he ended up crawling beneath the chairs (not
once, but thrice), ran around the room disrupting the session, was told at
least five times by the lady in charge to be seated, tried to get too close
when a live animal session started and spent most of the time squirming and wriggling
on the floor.
By the end of the session, I was still holding my breath
almost waiting for someone to cast their dismissive frown towards me. When we
were out, I couldn’t help feeling relieved. My son does a bit of running around
for some more time and is clearly exhausted. But he will refuse and wail when I
tell him it’s time to go home. Thus, the battle begins until we reach all the
way home and continues as we struggle to get through the lunch hour. Nap time
is again another battle because as much as he wants to sleep, he also feels
revolted with the idea of shutting his eyes which he thinks is a waste of time.
Soon, my bucket of patience is all spent, and I am screaming
like a mad woman and I remind myself to walk outside the room, so I can do some
pep-talk with myself. He follows me, wailing and hurt and just looks at me and
orders me – laugh mummy. Laugh mummy.
I am not laughing, I say as I glare at him, I am angry, and I
don’t want to laugh right now.
Laugh mummy. Laugh mummy, he continues until I force myself
to show my teeth.
There, he has diffused the situation again. Toddlers are
still terrible at age three like age two, except that they have an extra level
of smartness at being terrible.
Somebody tell me that there is no such thing as terrible fours.
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