The Truth About Three-Year-Olds

Right now I am the mother of a three-year-old, and life with a three-year-old can be pretty tough. If you have a three-year-old, you're probably nodding sympathetically with your bottom lip turned down in a "yes-I-know" expression. If you've had a three-year-old in the past, you have probably experienced some sort of subconscious memory suppression as a healing mechanism. If you're going to have a three-year-old in the future, come back at that time and see if your life parallels mine.

Here are ten of the many ways that three-year-olds make life interesting:

1. They learn the words "hate" and "stupid," and they use them in ALL CAPS!

"STUPID Mommy!"

"I HATE ponies!"

"Being happy is STUPID!"

"Everything that is fun is STUPID!"

"I HATE everything that I loved yesterday!"

2. They still need naps but not until about 5:00 p.m, so there is this 2-3 hour window of each day where you have to fight to keep them awake. If you surrender to the much-needed sleep, don't try to wake them after only half an hour. The screaming ratio is 4:1, so a half-hour of sleep results in two hours of tantrums. You're better off leaving the child be and starting the next day at 3:00 a.m. when the child comes stomping in your bedroom asking for a brownie.

3. Everything that comes out of their mouths is contradicting and manipulative, and no matter what you do, you can not force them to see how illogical they are.

"I'm too full to eat my breakfast. Can I have a snack?"

4. They need to pee all the time. The less convenient the restroom facilities, the more immediate the urge to pee. They never need to go when you're standing ten feet away from a bathroom. It's always when you're at the farthest point possible with a shopping cart full of groceries. They have you book it back to the front of the store only to say, "Huh. Guess I don't need to go!" Then you get this mentality that the child WILL pee, or else! So you sit them on the toilet, point your finger, and say, "Pee! Now!" but "The pee won't come out, Mommy!" Ten minutes later, they wet themselves in the car.

5. They learn to lie. The experts assure you that this is a normal developmental milestone, but it is just one more thing that makes you want to pull your hair out. It doesn't matter what you saw or what proof you present, they will look you in the face and lie. You can watch them pee on their closet floor for the third time in one day, and the conversation will always go like this:

"You peed on your closet floor again!"

"No, I didn't."

"I saw you."

"I didn't pee."

"Then why is the floor wet?"

"It's water."

"How did the water get there?"

"From the hose."

"The hose is outside. How did the hose get water on the floor of your second-story closet?"

"Through the window."

"WHO IS YOUR LAWYER?"

6. They learn to use ultimatums. 

"If you don't let me eat thirty pounds of Easter candy before lunch, I will always HATE you, and I will never love you because you are STUPID Mommy!"

And they leave you wondering Is this what I sound like? Because surely they have learned this awful behavior somewhere.

7. No form of discipline works on them. You can count to three 'til you're blue in the face, and you will never be successful. You can give them a very clear warning about the consequences of their actions, and they do not care. Time out? Psht! Let's face it, they'd be in there ALL DAY. Loss of privileges? Get real. Love and Logic? Just one problem... three-year-olds HAVE NO LOGIC.

8. They make you desperate and have you doing all those things you swore you would never do. Especially in public.

You know how uncomfortable you feel when you hear a woman yelling at her kids in the middle of Costco? You know how you're kind of humiliated for her, and you totally judge her because she is proving in a public situation that she has no control over her children?

Yeah. That woman has a three-year-old.

Sometimes that woman is YOU.

9. They still do everything they did when they were two, but they are stronger, faster, heavier, and have a more extensive vocabulary.

10. There is always another one in queue. By the time you have lived to see age four, there is usually someone waiting in the wings to turn three.

I think the only thing that keeps me from burying my head ostrich-style in the backyard is the fact that one in ten things my three-year-old says is very sweet, loving, or funny. Maybe that one thing is worth it.

Maybe.

I'll tell you when she's four.