NFR: Not Food Related

Today's post is not about little bellies - it's about little people. Particularly 3 year old people. "Threenagers" some people call them. Yeah, they can be that bad.

This past week and a half has been one of the toughest stints of my parenting career thus far. Both of my kids and I came down with a truly miserable illness - sore throats, fevers, lots of goop and hacking coughs. As such, Tucker was out of school ALL week last week. I didn't get anything accomplished. We hardly left the house. And, John was traveling most of the week. By the weekend, we had all had about enough of each other. 

I could feel my patience wearing thin. Tucker was crying and whining at the drop of a hat. He was asking for things he knew I would say 'no' to just so he could explode at me. He was pushing every one of my buttons, for days on end, and there was nothing either of us could do about it. We were trapped, sick of being sick, and sick of each other.

Today - mercifully - he went back to school. Two hours of peace for me, except that Sawyer is still a goopy, whiny mess. But when Tucker came back home, he started acting up again. By now I have no patience left. I was on the verge of screaming at him, but I didn't. I thought to myself, "he can be so sweet and wonderful. I know he's capable of being a joy. So, why doesn't he just do that instead?"

And then I remembered something I read recently in one of the parenting books piled up next to my bed. A parenting mistake is to have unreasonable expectations of your preschooler. For example, to witness their best behavior and then expect (or demand) it all the time. I stood in the kitchen, took a couple deep breaths, and really thought about this. Thought: what if I turned this logic around on myself?

"You can be the best mom -  you're capable of it, I know it. So why don't you just be the best mom all the time? You can be so fun and happy and playful and attentive. Can't you just be like that every minute of every day?"

Well of course not. I would like to be - sure. But that's just not realistic. And it's equally unrealistic to expect a 3 year old to be their best self all the time. It's exhausting being our best. And there's a lot of good excuses - like being sick, tired and worn out - when we're not. Let's try to give our "threenagers" the same grace we expect for ourselves.