She's been like this for the past week or so; constantly touchy, especially mean to her sister, pushing, yelling, taking. It's like her third birthday ushered in a whole new temperament, one that we are not used to dealing with and it makes us a little crazy. A lot crazy.
It typically starts with her whining because I'm peeling potatoes instead of playing with her, even though I've been playing with her for the majority of the day. Then it escalates into a full-on tantrum, she manages to wake up any other sleeping family member, and Mom turns into Monster Mom. Today I made of stack of all the positive discipline and parenting solution books I put faith in and set it on my nightstand. I'm even a little tempted to skip book club to stay home and read them, but I know I'd just end up cleaning the house instead (which from the look on Trevor's face would be fine with him).
It's frustrating because she's usually such a nice, good girl, and we've always been able to reason with her. Now there's no chance for reason, because it's all yelling and wailing. And oftentimes thrashing.
As you might expect, I'm very curious to know how long this will last. To be honest, I keep wishing a grandparent would call and say, "Why don't you send Berit over for a nice long weekend?" Because going from one extreme to another has made for a worn-out mommy. It's hard to want to play with her, when she's acting so mean to others.
I know it's just a phase, but it's one for which I was unprepared and now I feel like I need to quickly play catch-up with my parenting books. Instead, I'm going to head upstairs and clean out the tub Marta pooped in tonight. And then I'm going to book club. I think they'll have wine there.
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2 comments:
oh...the terrible threes...we have tried to block those sassy,ugly temper tantrumy days. We see them every once in awhile around here from the little lady of the house but it was horrid for that stint during the 3 year benchmark. Hang in. Seek patience, calmness, and switching up the parenting tricks...oh yes and LOTs of wine to help take the edge off. I would love to share some wine and adult conversation. Take care!
I'm a firm believer that the term "Terrible" should always preface "threes" and seldom preface "twos". When Audra turned three, it was like someone turned on the naughty switch. And not just the naughty switch, but sometimes, the downright impossible, turbo-naughty switch. It's like they wake up and realize independence and take the stance that they will no longer allow normalcy, so there.
Oy.
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