Three is hard. Three yells and screams when Three doesn't get his way. Three interrupts your instructions with a litany of "no's," and puts his four-inch-tall hand in your face, and tells you--more clearly this time--what he's doing and why he shouldn't be doing what you told him to do.
Three sits at dinner and blows bubbles in his milk until his dad is forced to set down his fork and tell him to stop. Then Three blows a few more bubbles, more slowly and purposefully, yet recognizably more forcefully, staring straight ahead like a warrior marching into battle.
Three listens for when his sister has been told not to go down the slide on her back and head-first, and then launches himself down the slide after her...on his back and head-first. Because no one told Three not to do this.
Three also listens for when his sister is tearfully in the Time Out Spot, and then he casually walks by, waving and smiling.
Three runs excitedly over to see what his sister is so excited about on the patio...a tiny roly poly cradled in her cupped hands. When the roly poly hugs itself into a petrified ball and rolls off her hands to the concrete, Three stomps on him. Three doesn't like most insects.
Three has been praying for his friend Helena and also his second best friend, cupcakes (no, not anyone's name. I'm talking about the baked goods, in general), for about 200 consecutive days. Three has called his mother "Mr. Pricklepants" for the last 250.
Three asks for privacy when pooping, and then shouts a simple, emphatic, "DONE!" when it is time for you to come wipe his butt. Three reports the number of poops he had this time.
Three pushes buttons. Forever.
But it's not really forever. Not at all. In fact, Three will be over in less than five months and then I'll be writing about Four. Three isn't always easy, but Three can fade in the most well-intentioned memory. I know, because trying to remember what my five-year-old was like at three is difficult, with only wisps of memory coming through, with the help of pictures and video.
Three demands to be captured.
Not too long ago, I was introduced to yet another amazing poem by Billy Collins, called "To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl." With this poem, Collins easily captured what 17 looks like--extraordinarily, and not so extraordinarily--in a poem addressed to said 17-year-old. So, challenged by a colleague in the spring, I decided to take Collins' poem and write for my Three, mimicking Collins' style and borrowing some of his words.
After a trying week at the end of summer with Three, it felt good to come back to this poem. Enjoy, and capture.
To My Favorite 3 Year Old Preschooler
“Do you realize that if you had been already 6 months old
on the day you were born,
I would have weathered the first six weeks so much better?
Of course, then your gloriously unmedicated birth would have been another level of Hell.
So never mind; I think I needed you to be so small and vulnerable,
even if it wrecked me
for awhile.
At your age, you can lead a charge against Daddy’s requests
more fiercely than Joan of Arc,
and you can make yourself a martyr,
pounding on the other side of the door,
declaring that we are mean and it’s not nice to put people
behind doors.
Of course you know there will be time to argue for liberation
again tomorrow,
or later today,
so when you give up the fight
and come out of the room,
you look refreshed
and Daddy is a sugar cube left out in the rain.
But did you know that at your age
you sing more beautifully than Judy Garland
after the lights are out in your room,
even if you’re singing about
Thomas’ latest adventure?
For some reason I keep remembering that
when Gracie was your age,
I was excited for her to be older.
But now that she’s five,
my years of holding her against my heart
as I travel around the house
are almost up.
And you, you might only have
two years left
of your whole life
that I can carry you with me--
two bodies
and only one pair of feet on the floor.
I know that this is true now
and so I want you to know
at your age,
you sing our family’s song,
you lead the charge,
but that doesn’t mean that you’re not
mama’s little buddy,
my favorite version of you
two feet off the ground.”
