3 under 3

The stuff I love:

1. Your language has suddenly become very mature and you are trying out more and more complex words, in context. The other day you said to me that you were “Really looking forward to my birthday, and I can’t believe it’s nearly here.” You are definitely not a baby any more. Although, sometimes you still try to say new words or phrases and you don’t quite get it right. We were in the supermarket last week and you got cranky with me about something. You put your hands on your hips and said, “How the earth? I’m yelling at you! How the earth???” I laughed and told you you were funny. It didn’t help your mood.

2. You are still loving your dance lessons every week, and your confidence is growing. You are so keen and focused, always trying your best and listening to Christine, your teacher. It makes me happy to see you enjoying something so much.

3. You just got a bike yesterday (your birthday) and I’m looking forward to giving you lots of opportunities to use it this spring and summer. Sometimes I feel we don’t get outdoors enough – it’s really hard with three so close in age! But with your new wheels it will be a bit easier as I won’t have to juggle pushing you on the scooter as well as Neave on the trike. I’m looking forward to trips to the basketball court and lots of family rides, eventually. I have to say, you are already pretty fast on that thing!

4. You are getting really good at drawing. One of my favourite things about being a teacher, and a parent, is seeing children’s drawing and writing skills develop. At the moment you are drawing lovely little stick-people, with giant heads and legs attached directly to them (no bodies). They are so cute. You are very particular about your drawings though, and if they don’t look quite right you get upset. I sometimes have a hard time convincing you not to scrunch them all up.

5. I love that you are back to sleeping during the day again. You had about a week of trying to drop that sleep a few months back, but the sleep has been reinstated, and it’s really for the best. You are much happier of an afternoon after your sleep, and I am much happier when I get a break from you guys for at least half an hour. Better yet, you are still quite easy to get to sleep of an evening.

6. You are getting to the age where we can play board games and do more challenging puzzles, which is brilliant because I like doing those things much more than imaginary games where the rules keep changing and I have to do the same boring things over and over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, those games are lovely, too, but I am a bit sick of them!

7. You just got some Barbies for your birthday (see this post for how I feel about that). I knew you would LOVE them, of course, but I will admit it’s kinda cool playing ‘Barbie’ with you. Barbie has already made use of her space suit; you asked me to change her into it as it was Wednesday and “Barbie always goes to space on Wednesdays.” Cute.

8. You are developing some really nice friendships with some of the girls at your daycare and your preschool. There are two girls you say are your best friends, and another girl at preschool whom you bonded with only recently because you had the same hat. It’s really nice to know that you are happy when I’m at work and that you have the skills to make friends, and are liked by your peers.

9. Every morning you start the day with a ‘pretty dress’ on. It’s usually the same hideous one with the pink and yellow flowers on it that you LOVE! You haven’t figured out how to put it on by yourself, though, so each morning I am greeted with “Mummy, do this up please!” Neave has started to join in and loves to dress up with you each morning, too. The hard part is convincing you both to take your pretty dresses off before you eat your breakfast each morning, lest they become weet-bixed. And jammed.

10. You are still having mixed results with toileting (see below), but when you are having a good week, I love how independent you are with taking yourself to the toilet, wiping, flushing and washing your hands. You do it all like clockwork, which kinda makes it all the more frustrating in your ‘bad’ weeks, but it at least gives me hope that this won’t last forever.

Nanny’s lipstick

The stuff I don’t love:

1. Okay, toileting. What the??? As I have mentioned in previous entries, we are having a really tough time with you and toileting. You stopped wearing nappies a bit over a year ago, and after three perfect weeks with no accidents and you taking yourself to the toilet independently, I really considered you ‘trained’. However, you re-lapsed after those three weeks. Then you got back on track after two weeks. Then you re-lapsed. Then you were fine…. That has been the pattern for the last year; two weeks of completely independent toileting, followed by two weeks of several accidents a day at home. You are fine at preschool and daycare. You are fine when we go out. But at home, you just stop bothering. I am almost literally tearing my hair out in frustration at this, because you can do it. We recently took you to a paediatrician because after all this time, I was beginning to think there must be something wrong with you that prevents you from knowing when you need to go. He was lovely, but of no help whatsoever. Basically, he said, you’re not ‘trained’ yet. Yes, you have your moments, but no, you’re not there yet. Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. There is nothing for us to do but wait it out and you will come around eventually. In the meantime, I am busy scrubbing poo off everything from floorboards, rugs, clothing, toys, the shower, and occasionally the toilet. Whoever said that toilet training is easy was a big fat liar.

2. Screaming. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, too, but you are a world champion screamer. Sometimes it legit but most of the time it is because somebody looked at you the wrong way, or because you didn’t get your own way. Totally over it.

3. You fight and bicker with your brother constantly. A lot of the time he starts it, but you are quite happy to join in with the name-calling and the imitating. Two weeks ago you got into trouble at both preschool and daycare for being really nasty to Tiernan; excluding him from games, kicking him (once) and calling him names. That was a bit of a surprise because, being siblings, you do that stuff all the time at home, but you usually are pretty nice to each other elsewhere. It’s probably a good thing Tiernan is going to school next year so you can have a break from each other!

4. You haven’t given up on insulting your Dad and I every time we discipline you, either. Whenever we tell you not to do something you call us “Stupid idiots,” and then you get sent to timeout. Then you yell at us some more and tell us you hate us, and timeout gets extended. Eventually you calm down and apologise, but the very next time you are caught doing the wrong thing, it starts all over again. Even worse, you’ve set a great example for Neave, who now does the same thing. She says things are ‘stupid’ if she doesn’t like them, and says, “I hate you,” when she doesn’t get her own way. Thanks for teaching her that.

5. Erm, I’m a bit embarrassed but you seem to have developed a slight American accent and we all know what that means: too much Sesame Street, Dora and probably Ben 10, too. Oops. It only comes out sometimes, particularly when you are playing be yourself. But it’s there. Sometimes it’s pretty funny, though, because you exaggerate your ‘r’s in the wrong places. For example, you say, “Mummerrrr” instead of ‘Mama’, and “Yeahrrrr” instead of ‘yeah’. I hope you grow out of it soon.