Do You Want to Die on this Mountain?

What is up with three? Laurel's potty trained, she can feed herself, makes hilarious observations about the world, and can tell us where it hurts.

Parenting should be a breeze, right?

ZOMG. No. Three year olds are insane. Laurel is so p.o.'d at us sometimes that she yells at us in her sleep. Sometimes she walks into our room and gets into our bed and wakes us up, just to yell at us. You are hurting my feelings. I didn't like when you said no to going to the purple playground. I love you, but you are not a good mommy. Reliving the perceived transgressions of the day.

She's very bossy, too. And if you do what she says, she gets mad and wants you to do something else.

We are considering buying some kind of straight-jacket device so that we can wrestle her out of wherever we are trying to leave without sustaining great bodily injury. Have you ever seen what they use to capture alligators? You could say that transitions have gotten a bit...errrr...challenging.

And she won't eat any vegetables except for saurkraut.

I threw away all my parenting books during my deeply sleep-deprived days when nothing seemed to work to make Laurel sleep through the night. And I gotta admit, I've been kind of winging it since then.  Staying off the old internet message boards and parenting blogs. Feeling very good about my gentle discipline parenting style. Mutual respect and all that.

We went on a 3,000 mile long road trip together a few months ago. And it was actually fun to hang out "all both together" as she puts it. Like, we actually had a rockin' good time on vacation with our kid. That's how awesome Two was.

I googled.  I read this. And this. And the quote that stood out for me was "Do you want to die on this mountain?" Pretty much anybody who is writing about three year olds ends up here. As in, choose your battles. Their (completely developmentally appropriate) behavior can be challenging. They are compelled by their little brains to exert independence and control.

It's actually kind of funny at times.

But do not laugh at your three year old.

That makes them really mad.