A Day in the Life of a Three-Year-Old

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This is an open invitation to take a glimpse into a day in the life of my three-year-old. Sometimes being three is tough; they are still trying to fully understand the art of communication, the difference between a napkin and a sleeve, wiping before getting off the potty, developing the skill to use a Kleenex instead of a finger. And if you have a boy, perfecting your aim in the potty.

Like most of us, we have days when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed, especially Mondays; I loathe Mondays. Most days we can give ourselves a pep-talk, possibly even convince ourselves to shower. Three-year-olds, on the other hand, haven’t developed that side of their brain yet, you know, the one that includes reasoning.

Exhibit A:
As I was getting his brother ready for school, I heard a blood-curdling scream. Now, normally you would expect a mom to run and see what’s wrong, but if you know anything about my three-year-old, you’d know this is a common occurrence.

When you are three, EVERYTHING is a big deal, NOTHING is fixable, and tears are readily available. So when I did go upstairs to witness the tragedy that had unfolded, I saw a little boy standing in a puddle of pee holding his blanket and baby.

He didn’t want to free his toys from his kung-fu grip so he could use the potty, he wanted me to personally hold them for him. Since I was unattainable at the moment, he decided to go right there at the top of the steps.

Now as moms, we might be flooded with waves of emotions and your initial reaction might be to lose your mind. “You have a potty in your room!” “Why did you pee on the floor?” Both are very natural and reasonable responses, or at least I hope so because that’s what I caught flying out of my mouth. Oh, did I mention he is fully potty trained?Day in the life of a three year oldI didn’t have time to comprehend what and why, so I grabbed him and out the door we went to bring my oldest to school. Hopefully my neighbors were not out at seven o’clock this morning, or they would’ve seen me running to my car with my three-year-old in the football hold, pant-less.

So there we were, driving to school with a half-naked little boy and a white-knuckling mom. My oldest trying very hard to reason with my three-year-old. “Were you sleepwalking?” he asked.

“Nope,” my three-year-old said. Meanwhile, I was thinking of how I was going to put an end to these strong-willed acts of his. “He knew better!”

After arriving back home, I had him help me clean up his mess. “This will teach him.” Boy was I wrong, he thought it was fun, he laughed and told me, “I cleaned up all of my mess mama!” How could I be mad at that?A day in the life of a three year old. I realized that I wasn’t teaching him a lesson, he had forgiven me for not being there at the exact moment he needed me. He was showing me how quickly we can let go of the frustration that can consume us. All I could see initially, was that he did it on purpose and I was inconvenienced. Three-year-olds don’t hold grudges or let one incident determine the fate of their day, so why should we?

What have you learned from your three-year-old?