The Therrible Threes

First I want to thank everyone for your comments in regards to my last post. Your thoughts and prayers are very much appreciated, and are working! Sophie remains healthy, which is a major blessing. She is scheduled for eye surgery on Sept 29th, but it is outpatient and will hopefully not be a big deal.

A lot of you expressed that if we need anything, to let you know. Well, since you're at it, if you could add Owen to your prayers, that would be great. :-) He is actually the one that is causing me the most gray hairs (Keith is equally frustrated, but he is somehow immune to graying so far). We heard a lot of people say that they thought the 3's were worse than the terrible 2's, and I would have to agree. I would definitely not want to be a 3 year old. Poor Owen gets frustrated and throws a mini tantrum at least a dozen times a day. He's still trying to figure out how this world works, and any time he doesn't get what he wants or doesn't understand something, he gets frustrated. Today we were setting up his train set, which has a semi-circle garage and a triangular piece that is supposed to hook up to it. He wanted to use that piece somewhere else, so we were trying to fit other pieces into the garage. He got frustrated when we couldn't fit in the pieces he wanted. We tried to show him what options worked, but he wouldn't accept any alternatives. He seemed to think we were not *allowing* him to put the pieces in he wanted, instead of the fact that they just couldn't physically fit in (you would think in this case he would be able to *see* that). Keith tried to explain that some things just don't go some places, like grapes don't go in your ears. That made him laugh, but still didn't seem to get him to understand. So we try and explain things as best we can, but his young mind has a lot to try and comprehend. And now I'm worried about the next time he has grapes. :-)

The most frustrating part is trying to get him to do something. Every morning is a struggle to get him to go potty and get dressed (even though we try and do the same routine every morning). He is out of diapers, but I wouldn't call him successfully potty trained. We used to have him on a steady schedule of potty breaks, but then he didn't really learn how to recognize when he had the urge and tell us he needed to go, so we stopped that. Now he seems to not like going potty and will only let us know he needs to go when it's pretty urgent or his underwear is already wet. Every night is a struggle to get him to wash his hands before dinner. We do it every night, and we warn him when it's coming, but he still fights it. We try and keep his bedtime routine constant, but every night takes longer than it should. Tonight I started the routine a little after 8pm with dessert (grapes), then bath time, potty, teeth brushing, getting pajamas on, reading books, then a story in bed. I think he finally fell asleep at 10pm. The hardest part tonight was trying to get him to pick his pajamas and books. If he picks then he always changes his mind, and if he says he wants us to pick, he's never ok with what we pick. We want him to learn how to make decisions, but when it takes him 10 minutes to pick out pajamas, it just doesn't work. We are trying to teach him that if he takes too long to do things then it means less time for fun things like playing with cars or reading books. But that upsets him, which means he's less likely to actually make a decision or to do something.

So our self-confidence as parents takes a hit often. It's hard for us to know how much of Owen's behavior is normal for a 3 year old, or if our parenting style is to blame. And of course we don't do much research on the subject, because, well, we're too busy trying to be parents! I do try to remind myself that *some* things have gotten better, like brushing his teeth, and being able to leave his room before he's asleep.

And of course he's not always crying. He can still be a lot of fun, and he balances out his frustrated times with plenty of hyper-excited times. This video is him singing part of "Life is a Highway" when he apparently had too much energy. I wish we could bottle that energy. I know Keith and I could use it sometimes!

In other news, Owen started in a new classroom for the new school year a couple weeks ago. The adjustment may be partly to blame for his behavior of late. Owen had a week off from school before the new year started, so Owen, Sophie and I joined my parents at a time share in Pinetop for the week (Keith stayed home to get some work done around the house). I'd be lying if I said it was a totally relaxing trip (for the above reasons and because I checked into work every day so as not to get too far behind), but I got out of town during the hottest week of the year, which was nice. Every afternoon we had scattered storms, which was really cool (literally and figuratively). Owen enjoyed going on a few hikes, and Sophie seemed to just enjoy being outside (a rarity this time of year in Phoenix). I enjoyed the change of scenery, spending time with my parents and taking pictures on our hikes. I have attempted to insert a slideshow below, but if that's not working, you can see the pics here.