Terrible Twos?

I have three kids, so this makes me an expert.  I firmly believe three kids means you can make general statements about kids and it has validity.  Like Bill Cosby said, you aren't a real parent if you only have one kid.  I would go a step further and say that having two kids still isn't a real parent.  Yes, you have sibling rivalry and all that.  But you are not outnumbered.  When the third little person shows up, you are now outnumbered every single day.  They can double up on you.  They can play a zone.  It isn't a fair fight.  That is when you really become a parent.  And you look like one too - you develop that slumped over look.  Bags under the eyes.  Looks like you haven't slept in a week because you stay up late to get "time to yourself" and then get dragged out of bed at ridiculously early hours.  You have that same world-weary look that every over the hill cop on tv or in the movies has.  Basically you have the same face as Bruce Willis in Die Hard.  He wasn't so grizzled because he had to constantly save the world - it was because he was a parent.

Anyway, once you have three kids you can make wild statements and generalizations and no one can really argue with you.  One kid can be an anomaly.  Two kids is a good start, but it still could be a freak happenstance (or something happening with your freaks).  Three kids is a pattern.  If anyone tries to argue with you, you can just hide behind things like "Well you're just a better parent than me" or "Well your kids are freaks - just look at them."  That's another thing about being a parent of three or more - you don't have a lot of patience for back talk.

This is my wild statement about kids.  You hear a lot about the Terrible Twos.  This is a crock.  The Terrible Twos is NOWHERE near as bad as Age Three.  Whoever did the marketing for this is amazing.  Age Two has been presented as this bad-butt terror of a year.  It's the TERRIBLE TWOS!!!  What else has earned the nickname "Terrible"?  Ivan the Terrible.  Terrible Terry Tate.  It is TERRIFYING!!!  RUN!!!  Age Three just sits there all quiet, snickering.  It doesn't want to be feared.  It was to sneak up on you, punch you in the groin and step on your neck.  You're sitting there wondering what the heck happened.  "I thought the Terrible Twos were over.  Why is my kids becoming Jack Jack from The Incredibles?"

Some of you new parents may not believe that.  Or, you have a two year old and are reading this - the blood running out of your face.  "He can't be serious, right?  Please tell me he's joking."  No, my friend.  I am not kidding.  Abandon all hope ye who enter this post.  Age Three is worse than Age Two.

When a kid is two, they are learning all the truly stupid and annoying things they can do.  They stop wanting to sleep, so they fight naps and pitch fits at nighttime.  They race around the house.  They are not coordinated enough, so this running usually leads to tripping and falling and busting lips and knees and foreheads.  They learn lots of new ridiculous noises and like to make them all the time.  They stop eating right and scream unless you maintain their strict regimen of McNuggets, Fries, and hot dogs.  They make some of the most horrendous screeching sounds - ones that feel like they actually are splitting your soul in two.  And everything becomes theirs.  Every toy, crayon, piece of furniture is subject to the "MINE MINE MINE" chant.  That is age two.  Age three is all of that, except with their newfound understanding that all of those things really bug their parents.

Somewhere near the end of Year Two, the child realizes that these things are very effective.  They have noticed the vein bulging out in our forehead when they scream.  So they do it more.  They see how frustrated we get when they don't go to sleep, so they stay up later.  They have picked up on how frazzled we get when they race everywhere, so they run faster.  Age Two is amplified, and enhanced with a extra infusion of nastiness.

The other thing is that they realize that their parents are largely full of it.  For the first couple of years, there is a healthy level of fear between child and parent.  We are these big tall creatures.  They are tiny and helpless.  So when we threaten to swat them or flick them or take a toy, they are afraid of what that means.  So they give in to our wishes.   By Age Three, they realize that most of what we have is hot air. We can swat them, so what?  They know that sting will end at some point and they can go on their merry way - continuing to wreck havoc.  And they also know that most parents are hesitant to actually swat for each offending action.  So the kid will do things like twenty times.  Who is going to swat the kid twenty times?  After ten, you start to feel like a jerk.  Time OUT!!!  The kid has learned that this is also known as "Brainstorming Time."  Those quiet minutes allows the kid to recharge their batteries.  It is actually a mini-nap for them.  But it also is a chance for them to come up with new ways to annoy and irritate.  You could argue that time outs are actually more damaging to the parent than kid.  So the child has learned that much of the sway we held over them was based on fluff - which encourages them to, by all means, continue.

What we have is a toddler, who doesn't look much different than the little angel we remember.  But in their brain, they have become a devious child in a toddler body.  Kind of like Chucky in Child's Play - except a toddler instead of a doll.  We, as parents, are kind of at a loss as to what to do to handle the situation.  We used to be able to write off a great deal of behavior to "they are young" or "they are tired" or "they are two."  Now, however, we begin to realize we have underestimated them.  Our first thought is "Did they do that on PURPOSE?!?"

I remember with Josiah that we, of course, struggled with him as a two year old.  But we kept telling ourselves it would get better.  We had heard all about the Terrible Twos and assumed that it would change on his third birthday - like a big present to us.  Instead, he got WORSE.  It was so bad that we actually sent him up to Heather's mom's house for a few days so she could tell us "what was wrong with him."  This is what Year Three does to you.  You begin to worry there is something wrong with your child.  No normal child would do some of the flat out stupid things that your child is doing.  It happened with Josiah.  It happened with Natalie - except intensified by the fact she was a girl.  Now, Gabe is about to turn three.  What do you think is happening?  That's right . . . he's morphing as well.

He does ridiculous stuff like refusing to sleep when he's dead tired.  I don't get this at ALL.  If you're tired, go to bed.  Don't claw your face, smack yourself around, and scream like you're screen testing for a horror film.  GO TO SLEEP!!!  He wakes up in the middle of the night and refuses to go back to sleep.  He pinches people.  He takes his tools and toys and hits his siblings - all under the guise of "playing with them."  There is this new thing he does where he flails his arms up and flings whatever toy he is holding into the air: stuffed flamingos, rockets, toy food, drink cups.  "WHOOSH!!!"  Everyone is ducking to avoid the projectiles.  He runs all the time - even when I tell him not to.  Last night he woke up at 12:30 and didn't go back to sleep until 3:15.  He's been a big pain all day, naturally.  Earlier, he was running back and forth.  I told him to stop several times, finally forcefully.  He looked up at me and ran across the room - keeping eye contact the entire time.  He just smacked Natalie with his Wonder Pets Flyboat.  I think he was "giving it to her."  Despite his exhaustion, he managed to stay awake in the van while we were running errands in the rain.  I was having trouble staying awake because the rain made me so sleepy.  But he, through sheer strength of will, managed to keep his eyes open.  Now, if he holds to form, he will either fall asleep on his own at 4pm, which will ensure him staying up until 10:30 tonight OR he will zonk out for the night at 5:30pm, which means he'll wake up in the middle of the night OR he will hold off until 7:00pm and then pitch a fit when it is actually time for bed.

Such is the life of a Three Year Old.  My nephew does the same stuff - drives his mother and grammy nuts.  And when I tell experienced parents that I think Year Three is worse than Year Two, almost unanimously they agree.  "Oh yeah, you're right.  Year Three is the worst until the Teen Years begin."  If this is such common knowledge, it makes me wonder why I never knew that until I got blindsided by it.  It makes me wonder if parents have this big conspiracy against new parents.  "We won't tell them about Year Three.  Then we can laugh at them when it hits them unawares."  It's kind of like they feel that since they had to deal with it, than new parents should as well.  It's a right of passage.  Makes me think of Sinbad's character in Necessary Roughness when he tells the college students they had to take this one class.  "It doesn't make sense to me why you need to know this, but I had to learn it when I was in school, so you have to learn it to."

So, new parents, don't hate me for being so brutal.  Instead, realize that I have broken the Parent Code and shared a secret with you.  Brace yourself.  Year Three is coming . . . and bad things are coming with it.  Be prepared and aware - and make sure you duck those flying fire engines.  It will all be over soon.  Just try not to think about the fact that Year Four can be even worse.  (Oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to say anything about that either.)

Storm Drain

Last night Josiah had a class presentation up at their school. It was really cool. Each second grade class had their own musical presentation based on a book. So it taught reinforced the need for reading, while also teaching music. Josiah's class did Alexander's Terrible Awful No Good Very Bad Day. The school the kids go to is also an Arts Magnet School. So they have more music and art stuff than the average school. Good for us. At the performance, the school also received a $2000 check from Target to help cover the costs of new instruments and other stuff for this particular event. (They do it each year.) It was really cool to see how the kids are doing at the school - they had little friends who came up to them and said hey. The teachers and administrators waved at the kids and were really pleasant.

But that's not what I wanted to write about. During the performance, Gabe was getting very upset that Josiah was not sitting with us. Then he saw Josiah up on stage. Then he got very upset that he was not allowed to go sit with Josiah. He would go and stand in the aisle and then slowly creep down the aisle. Finally one time he just kept right on walking. Heather caught him about two rows before the front. It was at that point that I got to assume my standard position with Gabe at a performance, movie, church service -- standing outside.

We went out of the cafeteria and Gabe started walking around. There is this gigantor grassy area outside of the cafeteria. It has benches and a monstrous tree in the middle. If I was a kid, this would be very cool. Run run run, little man. You are trapped in a little crappy apartment all day. Here's your chance to just go nuts and run to your heart's content. Nope. Not part of Gabers' plan. He went walking right towards the storm drain area that is up against the driveway. Not only is there a driveway that had cars pulling through it. But there is also this really scary drop that slopes into the storm area. I can just see myself stepping into that crevice and snapping my leg. (Please remember how bad of a klutz I am.)

Gabe has no idea that this is down there. He just sees the street and wants to walk into it. I keep stopping him and moving him back on to the grassy area. I try to distract him. He would run back to the sidewalk and then would slowly walk back towards the street - trying to trick me. All told, he probably ventured up to the edge a dozen times. Each time I would have to literally stand in front of him and redirect him back away from danger. This is pretty normal behavior for me and Gabe. All day as we sit around the apartment, he does stupid things to try to maim himself and I have to try to stop him. He jumps off the couch. He slides down my computer bag. He bangs his head on the entertainment center doors. He tries to climb up Josiah's bunk bed ladder. Any time a door opens he races outside. He doesn't want you to hold his hand through the parking lot - he just wants to run unabated to the car.

It seems like he has a death wish. If I had to pick which kid is "most likely to break a limb," Gabe would win. If I had to pick which kid is "most likely to tick someone off with their shenanigans and get popped in the mouth," Gabe would win. He is nuts. I am soooo much more patient with him than with the older two. Experience and growth as a person has helped with that. But I am constantly amazed at how often he just walks right up to the edge and try to get away with it. He will bang on stuff and not stop until I get up to grab the item. He pushes and pushes. It is frustrating. But it is because he's two and testing every boundary he has - including the boundaries of gravity and vehicle acceleration/braking.

So what's my excuse? I think about the number of times that I have done the exact same thing. I go right up to the edge and try to get away with it. Actually, I think all of us do that. We all want to know how fast we can drive before we get a ticket. How much can we fudge on our taxes before we get an audit? How much pizza can we jam in our gut before we get sick? How little work can I do before my boss gets mad and fires me? People always are testing their limits. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense. Sometimes I ask myself, "What the heck am I doing? Why am I even testing this limit?" I push right up to the edge to see how far I can go without getting hurt, getting in trouble, getting shunned in a Klingon ceremony where everyone spins away from me and makes strange guttural sounds.

What I don't realize - much like Gabe last night - is that there is this enormous field right behind me that I could run around and have a ton of safe fun. He was so absorbed with trying to jump off the curb into the street that he missed out on a football field of grass and a huge tree. He could have had so much fun running around, messing with mulch, kicking the tree. But he just kept wanting to jump off the curb. We are just like that as adults. People are just like that. They are so obsessed with knowing where "the line" is. They want to know how far they can go without catching a disease or ending up on someone's hit list. If they would just turn around, there is a whole world of excitement right there waiting. Why do we need to get so close to that line? Why do we have to dance on the precipice of danger? Sure, it is exciting due to that danger. But the risks are enormous. You would think that a lifetime of 90% fun with no risk of disaster would outweigh a moment of 100% fun with a high risk of wiping out. That would make sense.

But, man, that storm drain sure looks fun . . .

Darth Gabus

This isn't a deep insightful post. (Neither are the rest of them, Staples. Move on, move on.)

I love my kids. I don't think that is a surprise to anyone out there. I think all of them are just awesome. I have really enjoyed getting to know Gabe as he has gotten older and developed his own unique personality. And that personality is a fink. He is just crazy - absolutely nuts. He is also brilliant, and he is very mechanically inclined. He can unlock our cell phones, Heather's iPod Touch, basically any electronic gadget. He can open every unlocked item with batteries and get the batteries out. He also has learned how to switch the sound off of the television - usually right in the middle of something important. I mean, he's such a sweet and funny kid. But he's a full fledged fink.

I gave him the nickname "Darth Gabus" a while back. My theory before he was born was that he was going to become the ringleader. He would just sit back with his dark cloak and give the other two suggestions and then laugh as they took the blame. I see nothing to disprove this. In fact, it seems like he is well on his way. Not to say that he doesn't do his own damage.

• When I change his diaper, I will say, "I need to clean your butt." (Don't judge me.) Well, naturally he has learned to say butt. "Butt butt" Now whenever he gets his diaper changed "butt butt." When he gets a bath "butt butt." At first he was confused, uh, what side of his body his "butt butt" was on. He was walking by and I said, "Hey Gabe, where's your butt?" He stopped, looked at me, grabbed the front of his shorts like he was a smack-talking wrestler and goes "butt butt butt." Noooooo. Well, I think he figured it out now. We were wrestling around on the ground the other day. After he was done, I was laying on my stomach. I guess my shorts had slid down a little, because next thing I know, he walked by and stopped next to me. He poked my backside, said "butt butt" and raced down the hallway.
• At night, Gabe does not want to ever go to bed. He'll stay up as long as he can stand up. He's tired, and you can tell because he starts to do stuff wrong. He'll go to the pantry and open it and pull stuff out and throw it all over. He'll pull DVDs down off the bookcase. He'll open drawers, turn off the TV sound, bang on my computer, open the dishwasher, dance around to any music on the television. It is like a human whirlwind. The whole point is to keep busy and play like crazy. UNLESS.... If for some reason Natalie or Josiah has climbed up into Heather's lap for any reason, Gabe will know and race over to her and start whining, crying, screaming to get held. He'll get pulled up there and sit there for a couple minutes and then get back down and run away. He just doesn't want anyone else up there. He is very jealous of Mommy's time.
• Today after my shower, I had not put my shirt on yet. I was playing around with Gabe and the other kids on the bed. I had gotten onto the floor and covered myself with a blanket. My arms were on the bed with my chin resting on the bed. The older two kids started sliding down my back. Darth Gabus had different plans. He started to headbutt me every time I peeked out of the covers. After about five good whacks, he started to stomp on my head. It was like something out of old WWF. It didn't hurt too bad, just this kid maniacally laughing while stomping on my head. I finally sat up and said "You know what? I've had enough of this." He saw his chance and raced across the bed, grabbed both of my nipples in his little hands and yanked. A double purple nurple. You beginning to understand the name now?

And, yes, we're loving every minute of it.