My friends and I agree, at 3.5 years, there is an uptick in defiance. It’s not the regular “NO! NO!” defiance from the twosies, or as Greg calls it, “A Case of The I’m Not Gonnas”, but it’s rather an icky, button-pushing, loud, aggressive, bold type of defiance. Having several friends with kids this age, many of us seem to be in the same boat, so we’re worried less about it by the day (or the fit, depending on your horizon).
I’m no longer time-outing. We are bed-sitting these days. When I tell Sara to stay out of the nail polish and she paints the entire bathroom sink with it, she’s safer on her bed as I scrub that sink with nail polish remover. When she runs away from me so fast in a store that I have to drop everything I’m holding, grab Kelly, and CHASE her full speed (while she’s giggling)… it just begs the question, why does she do it, knowing full well I’ll take away the car DVD player? Before kids you think you’ll be the parent who can gracefully handle public displays of grotesque misbehavior. After kids, you become the parent who turns purple, senses the red light in the brain coming on (which is accompanied by a very uncomfortable bursting pulse in the neck), grabs one tiny arm, and starts whispering threats that include, “STOP THAT RIGHT NOW OR YOU WON’T WATCH CARTOONS UNTIL PROM, YOUNG LADY“, and “I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR GRAD SCHOOL YOURSELF, LITTLE MISSY!” Because that makes sense to a preschooler, who is fully aware that her name is neither Lady, nor Missy, so obviously I must be threatening some kind of imaginary friend.
The first picture in this post is Sara attempting to chain herself to a table. She was protesting a noble cause: I told her she needed to pee. What kind of mindset must one be in to protest a mandatory bodily function? Hell NO I wont’ GO…pee! I’d like to think she’s a girl with a cause, and is protesting on behalf of all fellow 3 year olds. The suffering. The inhumanity. Of being denied popsicles at 8:30 in the morning. Sara, the Che Guevara of Preschoolers Everywhere. Great. My kid is destined to become an international symbol of radical counterculture. I doubt there’s a parenting book ON THAT at the library. I’ll probably go to school tomorrow and mumble, “I think Sara might be showing Marxist tendencies”, and the administrators will laugh, “HA! Yes. The Marxist phase. We get that a lot of that here…so cute. Wait just one moment, let me get you a pamphlet and an instructional DVD.”
Say it with me friends…this too shall pass…
2 responses to “Defiance Rears Its Ugly Head”
Well, look at it this way – the Castros are almost dead, and Cuba will be looking for new leadership. We already know from the “Verde DVD” incident that she speaks Spanish, and I feel quite sure that Sarah could run a country as well as some of our former presidents. Every Tuesday could be National Cuban Popsicle Day, leading to a very high approval rating for her presidency.
Ahhh….3….oh how I fear thee. I’m glad you’re blazing the trail and living to tell about it. There is a spark in Alexa’s eye and a stomp to her tantrums that tells me she is just waiting to build the physical strength and mental acuity to raise the type of ruckus that will REALLY get her point across. I think there may be a reason Sara and Alexa hit it off so well when they met.