Three is the New Two

It is definitely true what "they" say. Three is the new two. Three is way worse than two. I learned about the idea on Ask Moxie about children having a balanced period followed by an unbalanced period. (Not sure who's idea this was originally.) The balanced period generally occurs for the first 6 months of an age, followed by 6 months of being unbalanced. (So that from say, age 3-3.5 a child will be going through their balanced period and then be unbalanced from 3.5-4.) Both of my kids seem to go through some major unbalancing a few months before their birthday. Which means, right about now, Marcus is completely out of whack.

I try not to say anything negative about my kids on this here blog. Let's face it though, there is a lot of stuff that goes on in the raising of children that isn't all puppies and rainbows. This phase is hard. This phase sucks. And this phase will be over soon enough. In fact, as bad as the last two weeks have been, I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Not even sure how much of this behavior has been this "unbalanced" phase and how much has just been our current situation. We have snow. A lot of it. (Which is starting to melt at last.) That leads to lots of time inside. No school. Spending 24/7 with each other. Lots of boredom from everyone involved. Lack of patience and energy from pretty much everyone in the house. And a three year old who is driving us all nuts.

Marcus is typically an easy kid. He is always doing his best to make sure everyone is happy and can even be qualified as overly obedient. Not counting these last couple weeks. He has been whining more than I have ever heard a kid whine in my life. There is sass. He could win a gold medal in sibling rivalry. There is defiance. There is pouting and temper tantrums. Making it more frustrating is that I know he has the verbal skills to express his needs/wants but often times just resorts to behavior that I would expect from an 18 month old. He is testing his limits.

Thankfully I recognized all this pretty quick and tightened those limits right up. It has been a bit of a struggle of wills, but slowly we are coming out on the other side of it all. Still having some issues of some serious attitude and downright grumpiness, but things aren't nearly as bad as they have been.

So it sucks sometimes. Sometimes I feel like the good times are so limited and I never know what I might say or do (or not say or not do) that will quickly tip those good times into the bad. Any day that Marcus happens to take a nap now, he wakes up crying that he wants his mommy and all I can do is sit and rock him in my lap until whatever unknown thing that has set him off has passed. And sometimes, sitting there with my great big boy curled up in my lap while I rock him makes all the tough times during this phase not matter one bit.