Three

Three used to be one of my favorite numbers.  Three -- it's the magic number.  Good things come in threes.   Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  Hat tricks.  I even dated a hockey player in high school whose jersey number was three.

Three is an adorable age.  Three is monumental.  Birdy, at age three, is smart and expressive and makes up songs and wants to discover everything about the world around her.  Everything is a miracle, a surprise.  She knows the months of the year, the days of the week, and she's working on learning the fifty states in order alphabetically.  She mispronounces words: forget becomes fromget.  She hugs me tightly around the neck and holds on.

This morning, as my darling three-year-old daughter asserted herself by crying, kicking, screaming, pushing her brother, yelling "No!" and throwing herself on the floor, I realized I no longer favor that innocent little number three.  The intense bout of grumpiness lasted from the moment I got her out of bed to the first soothing notes of "Love Me Do" as we backed out of the driveway -- one solid hour.

Her brother was the same way.  The twos weren't so terrible, although we had our moments, and so when we hit three with Toad, we breathed a sigh of relief.  We had no idea what we were in for.

Birdy seems to be traveling down the very same path.  It started a few weeks before her birthday, when she discovered her ability to shriek.  Anytime she doesn't get her own way, anytime she hears the word "No" or a variation thereof (and I believe in telling my children no, although I'm not going to lie, sometimes it's easier to say yes), she lets out a long, high-pitched shriek, sometimes accompanied by hitting or grunting or the aforementioned throwing herself on the floor.  At our recent Easter celebration, after one of Birdy's now-famous (or infamous) shrieks, one of her cousins questioned if he'd really heard it or if it was something only a dog could hear.

Here's an example of a common exchange:

Mama: Would you like to pour your oatmeal into the bowl?
Birdy (shakes head): No, you do it.
Mama: OK, I'm going to pour it.  Are you sure you don't want to do it yourself?
Birdy: No, you do it.
(Mama pours the oatmeal into the bowl).
Birdy: WAHHHHHH! I WANTED TO DO IT!

I try to to remain calm.  Sometimes I yell, I'll admit that.  I tell her that I've had enough.  And that doesn't work -- she just yells back, "Why are you being so loud?"  Most times I tell her that she is welcome to pitch a fit and when she's finished, I will be available to help her.  I tell her over and over that I love her but I don't love the way she's acting right now.  I try to be empathetic to her situation.  Firm but kind. Yes, it's hard to be three, just like it was hard to be two.  She's learning and developing at a rapid rate.  She's expressing herself, she's asserting herself.

I just wish she wouldn't assert herself so loudly.

No: Why Kids -- Of All Ages -- Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It by David Walsh