Bring on the Fours

The trying threes will be over in two months! I know the fours, especially with girls, can be a testing age as well. I’ve been through it once with my sweet little String Bean: the attitude, the sass, the first stinging comments, those “if you don’t do this then I won’t be your friend anymore” type remarks, and even the occasional “I hate you!” when she was good and mad at my rules. But, in my opinion, the threes are a special brand of difficult. The other morning Peanut, my happy, smiling girl, threw a rather spectacular tantrum because I put on my panties before asking her which color I should wear. Now, since she’s never shown any interest in or opinion on my underwear before, how was I supposed to know she cared to choose them for me that particular morning? I’ll tell you how: because she’s three.

Peanut’s will is unlike any I’ve seen before. And I’ve known some ridiculously strong-willed people. I can even be one of them when the occasion calls for it. But nothing really prepared me for the uncompromising stubborn nature of my little cherub. I have a healthy respect for her obstinate streak, and think it’ll serve her well in life. I’ve always felt like she came into this life knowing exactly who she is, and it’s more my job to figure out who that is than to bend her to any standards I might cater to. String Bean is more likely to follow my lead, to want my approval, to adapt to me without even knowing she’s doing so. Peanut, loving as she is, really isn’t that concerned with pleasing me. She’s a good kid, epic tantrums aside, smiley and quick to share and eager to befriend everyone, so I figure the stubborn streak balances her out a bit, keeps her from being a pushover. I’m sure being four with that iron will is going to be a bumpy ride for both of us, but it’ll be a nice change from these threes of thrashing tantrums and screaming fits of misdirected rage over things like someone else’s underwear color.

Threenager

I’ve been trying to come up with an accurate “terrible twos” type euphemism for the threes, which in my opinion are far worse than the twos, and I heard this from another mom. I think “threenager” is cute, and fitting. The threes, for both of my girls, were when the attitude kicked in.

I’m not sure how the terrible twos got such a bad rap. Maybe because it’s when the first tantrums start, and we’re all mildly horrified to see our sweet toddling little baby, who used to blow us raspberry kisses and giggle when we changed her diaper, turn into a red-faced beast who is completely out of control with emotion. But when your kid is two, they’re small, easily restrained or picked up to haul out of a grocery store, quickly distracted by shiny objects or food, and when they calm down, they come to you for comfort.

In my experience, the three-year-old tantrums are much more epic. When Peanut has a tantrum now, she doesn’t just want to huff and cry and blow off steam, she wants to harm me, her sister, herself. She bucks and thrashes and chases me around trying to bite me. She throws and kicks (aiming for your stomach or throat) and screams like some kind of wild animal in extreme pain. And she’s strong. Too strong for me to restrain without hurting her. She’s pretty inconsolable throughout the whole ordeal, so I just shut her in her room and wait her out until the animalistic screams turn to calls for mommy, and then I know we’re through the worst of it.

But my biggest complaint with the threes isn’t the tantrums, it’s the attitude. The threes, for both girls, were when the word “no” became the only word in their vocabulary. Peanut will say “no” to you before you’ve even finished offering her something. If I start a TV show for her, she immediately yells: “No, not that one!” before she’s even seen what’s coming on. Pick out an outfit, and she’ll shout “no!” from the hallway, where she can’t even see which outfit I’m holding. She also will get stuck on demanding the one thing she’s figured out we don’t have. Yesterday it was strawberries. We have 10 kinds of fruit in the house, all favorites of hers, but all she wanted was strawberries. The day before it was yogurt-covered raisins, which is only funny because she hates yogurt-covered raisins and spits them out every time (as she did when I finally got her to ask nicely for some, and gave them to her).

String Bean, who is finally coming down off the spectacular four-year-old attitude surge, will sometimes just put her hands on her skinny hips and shake her head at her sister, then look at me. “Was I like that when I was three?” she’ll ask. “Worse,” I tell her, which seems to amuse her greatly. Peanut’s got a stronger will than String Bean, so the stubborn part of the “threeenager” is more pronounced there, but Peanut’s got nothing on String Bean’s hyper-sensitive side. If String Bean had wanted strawberries when we were out, she wouldn’t just have asked for them ten thousand times in one day, she’d have been brought to tears by the disappointment.

So the sweet, mislabeled “terrible twos” are behind us, and soon I’ll be discovering what joys the fives bring with them. I’ll ride out the threenager issues as best I can, and try to keep a positive perspective, because I know that after the threes, come the fours, with haughty attitude paired with bizarre child-logic that runs you around in circles. I have a feeling Peanut’s really going to give me a run for my money in that phase.

One of Those Weeks

Last week started out a little rough, with String Bean in one of her snotty phases, where the answer to every question is no, and delivered in as sassy a tone as she can muster. I try to humor her as much as I can in these phases, reminding her of concepts like saying please and thank you, and explaining that it accomplishes nothing to scream at me for preparing her the exact lunch she requested, just because it’s on the blue plate instead of the red one. In quieter moments I talked to her about what was going on with school, with her dad being out of town, with the busy weekend we’d had where I knew she got a little worn out, trying to find the cause of the attitude. I never got specifics, but through these quieter talks, she slowly came back to herself, and we seem to be back on better terms now.

So then, of course, it was Peanut’s turn. One of the fun things about a two-year-old is all of the growing independence, the ability to accomplish certain tasks alone, the excellent communication skills to avoid misunderstandings. One of the least fun things is that they are two, which means that they have these moments where something is going on in their body or brain that renders them incapable of a coherent thought, action, or sympathy for the poor addled mother trying to figure out what caused this epic tantrum to burst out of nowhere. Peanut had at least one doozy of a tantrum each day for four straight days. We’re talking thrashing, head-banging, throwing, hitting, scratching, pinching, screaming herself hoarse, chasing me around trying to bite me tantrums. And considering what a sunny, peaceful child she is 99% of the time, these moments are pretty disconcerting. I know the solution is to ride it out, wait until she’s blown off some steam and calmed down enough to want my comfort, when she’s back to my loving girl who asks me to wipe her tears and hold her for a while. But knowing that in the end it will all work out doesn’t make the tantrums any easier.

So, last week was kind of a long, exhausting week. Yesterday was a better day on the tantrum front. Let’s hope the trend continues this week.

Mommy Do It

One of my kids’ favorite expressions, and their father’s least favorite, is “Mommy do it.” They say, shout, scream this whenever he tries to do any task that I normally perform in his absence (yes, this means just about everything). From buckling them into car seats to putting pajamas on them to filling their morning cup of milk, they lob this little demand around like it is a perfectly reasonable request. It frustrates hubby and I to no end. For one thing, he’d really like to help, and he’d like a little cooperation on their end when he tries to help. For another, I don’t want to have to do everything kid-related, and when he’s available to help, I’d love to have an extra set of hands pitching in, without all the fuss about dad pitching in. So why the big battle on letting Daddy help out? This has been going on for so long that we’ve just accepted it. We’ve tried every solution to getting past the “Mommy do it” demand, from forcing them to accept his help (often resulting in ridiculous tantrums that, in the end, hardly seem worth it), to bribing them to accept his help (“no dessert for girls that don’t let daddy change their diaper!”), to just giving in and doing the kid-related stuff myself, while hubby handles the dishes, toy pick-up, and various other non-kid-related chores. I don’t have any pearls of wisdom to offer on this as-yet unresolved issue. I just wanted to complain a little. I feel better now.

Love Conquers All, Even Tantrums

Not long ago, I found myself in line at Target, just in front of a mom with a child in mid-tantrum in her cart. I turned as I heard the familiar shriek, followed by some thrashing about in the seat (luckily, he was firmly strapped in), to find the boy’s mother smiling and saying, “Aw, I love you!” every time the kid wound up for another scream. The child, predictably, responded with a resounding “NO!” followed by more wailing, kicking, and attempts to engage his mother. She simply smiled adoringly at him and told him again how much she loved him.

I was quite impressed with her response. She was calm, able to laugh off the situation, instantly winning favor with other moms around her (we were easy to spot by our eagerness to show her our approval), and her older children followed her example by not responding to the toddler, and didn’t feel the need to compete for mom’s attention since the fit-throwing child wasn’t getting much attention.

I have yet to encounter such a full-fledged tantrum in public with my kids (one benefit of rarely taking them shopping with me), but if/when I do, I hope I have the presence of mind to follow her example and battle the tantrum with pure, overwhelming love and a good dose of humor.

Terrible Twos

As the mother of a child in the thick of the terrible twos, I have lots of chances to test and revise my strategy for dealing with her mood swings. The main thing that strikes me, this second time around, is how little emotional impact her tantrums have on me. With my first daughter, watching her thrash around on the floor in a fit of angst made me feel as emotionally unstable as she seemed. I felt somehow responsible for her emotional state, like if I couldn’t help her come back to herself, I was somehow failing both of us.

This time, I know it’s just one of those phases we’ll both survive, and that each day spent in it brings us a day closer to being through this particularly un-fun aspect of growing up. When I see the tantrum brewing I simply walk away, keeping my mood light and fun, and go busy myself doing something that I act terribly enthusiastic about. Most of the time, this alone will bring her from the verge of a meltdown. She really is a happy child at heart, and would always rather play together than suffer an outburst alone.

When she does go over the edge into that melodramatic place, I don’t feel pulled down with her. Instead, I’m able to feel sympathetic that she’s going through this, and grateful that these are the last terrible twos I’ll be dealing with. I can offer hugs, snacks, a stuffed animal to take out her anger on, or the occasional time out when she tries to hit or bite me or her sister, and never take any of it personally.

Second children really do have it so much better than first kids. As my step-sister-in-law once said, “First children get all of our fears.” It’s true, we’re so worried that first time around about screwing our kids up for life, or that we’re failing miserably at this whole motherhood game. They react, we overreact, they react to our overreaction. Second (and all subsequent, I imagine) kids get a different kind of mother. One who is grounded, less flustered, and not so hard on herself.

Hopefully, I can take some of these second-child lessons and still apply them to my first born. I’d like for her to look back and remember a playful, relaxed, fun mommy who always knew how to calm her down, and forget that stressed-out lady who used to take those typical two-year-old emotional meltdowns far too seriously.