The Terrors of a 3-year-old
They laugh at you in victory!
Getting a child is the most exceptional event in your life. The birth, the agony( your wife’s in any case-I took a nap at 3AM because I couldn’t handle being in the room anymore), the drama. But of course most people have had children, and everyone you meet on the street has been born. Being born is something that is utterly pedestrian. We have all experienced it. It is something that you have in common with everyone on the planet (so far). Did you know that around 6% of all the humans that have ever lived are alive today? I thought the proportion would be larger.
I had a colleague who told me congratulations, you will now have something to worry about for the rest of your life. She was a worrier, but that’s OK, I dont think she was wrong. I know a kid is something I will never forget at the very least.
A three year old is about the worst roommate you could ever have. I remember being in the delivery room wondering who this new roommate was. They would be taking up space and eating my food for at least the next 18 years, but I had no idea who they would be. Which I found especially funny because their genetics had already been decided about 9 months before that. Its funny, but it’s also a little scary because you then remember how important nurture is in addition to nature. I accredited any intelligence, aptitude or quirkiness to her nature and all neuroses and difficulties to that inevitable day where I get especially upset and say something I would regret. And I thought I might not even regret it until I heard about it again 20 years later when they tell me why they are angry at me.
Apparently the first year might be the most important for nurture, and that is scary with your first child because you have no sense of control, they cannot communicate other than cry (a lot), you have never done this before, and frankly I still pay someone to help me get over my own childhood.
You know I wrote that sentence and before I knew it i had clicked into my gmail to see what my new interest rate was. Dissociation is not always intentional, and we all deserve some slack.
Or at least that is what I think, but I think the child might disagree. My daughter is well into her fourth year on this planet, 3 going on 13. People tell you this age might be a difficult time, but like everything else someone tells you about raising children, it just doesn’t get through your thick head until you have experienced it yourself.
This is about literally everything with a child. The most common thing in life (life) is the most surprising thing that will happen to you all day.
Babies are innocents. Rugrats are cute but bleed from the mouth too often. Toddlers test you, but their quick growth is astounding and a joy to experience. A three-year-old it just a sociopath.
Just enough language to be understood. Enough hours in the game to know what gets under your skin. Absolutely no concept of empathy. And a sense of untouchability.
We ate tacos tonight, and tonight actually went quite well-There was no meltdown, not from the child, atleast. However, the little one loves sour cream. She will crack a taco shell into two, lay one side down on her kitten plate and then smear the shell with sour cream. Absolutely lather it like she was about to shave it. (Which reminds me, she almost got hold of mama’s razor tonight, and she will definitely be on the lookout for it in the future.)
Well, on other nights it has been a disaster, my hand covered in sour cream after dashing the spoon from her steel grip, her tears streaming into the cream drops around her nose, half of the carton now on the plate.
Tonight, she again took too much. I told her that the spoonful she was currently plopping down was her last one. She heard me, looked up into my eyes and then without looking managed to scoop one more blob out of the carton and onto her plate. I was impressed with her motor skills but even more taken by her determination to make me show her my neck.
Well I didn’t- I held firm and gave her an icy stare- it was an uncomfortable detente for the rest of the evening.
And tonight went really well! She was asleep and no one cried! And when I say no one, I do not mean her. I mean literally none of us, and that isn’t always the case. One morning we woke up and somehow she cast the perfect spell of disobedience and general disregard that I had a panic attack.
When we first got pregnant, I had dreams of a quiet family. Some spice, but not too much drama. I was scared to be one of those families that always seemed to be yelling. Well. I wouldn’t say we are always yelling.
But there is something about a three year old. They live in their own world, they still see things on their terms. They have begun to reason out the world, see the patterns, see there are things to say, things to do, that make them uniquely human. It requires practice, but, you seem them trying to figure out humor. They are typically terrible at it and it often devolves into a type of bullying, but my daughter does have a way of giving me the side eye that just seems mischievous.
Like she doesnt care at all. Like she doesn’t hear me, like she knows that is one of those things in the world that will get me going. And it absolutely does.
