Three. Again.

Seriously, three, I have not missed your ass.  I have survived you before, and darn it, I will survive you again.

No, seriously, I will.

In my sweet, rose tinted memory I hardly remember Addison at three, until I force myself to.  As sweet as she was, that child was not perfect - as evidenced by this rant, and this one, okay and this one too.  I have some how scrubbed my memory and only recall her holding my hand, and snuggling, and holy sweet Jesus, sleeping through the night.

You often hear that people have a second (and third and fourth and ...) child because they have forgotten about the pain of childbirth or those early, exhausting sleepless days and weeks.  Hmmm.  I counter that argument.  People have a second child because A) they have yet to experience the thrill ride that is a three year old or B) they are too damn tired to remember what a ridiculous roller coaster three was.

Looks can be deceiving

Miss Brenna is loved and adored.  Her chocolate eyes are gorgeous, her hugs are delicious, her laughter is infectious.  But, I shit you not, her attitude (Brennatude?) is insufferable.  It is slowly stripping away my humanity.

She wants what she wants.  Not what you offer. 
Not the Minnie Mouse cup, the Anna cup.
Not the blue plate, the pink plate (Pink is my favorrrite color.  Then orange.  NOT blue, MOM. Not BLUE).
I want grapes.  NO STRAWBERRIES!  No grapes!!  Why can't I have the orange I (didn't) ask for?

For over a year we have been going to the YMCA a couple times a week (not that you'd know by my waistline, thank you very much Mr. Wine) and now suddenly she is turning on the tears as I turn to leave.  Those poor women who work childcare - I give her a squeeze and run off to work out, because if  I didn't things would get ugly around here (ahem, uglier).

Nap time is a fight.  It's bribery and coaxing and raised voices and tears.  I often lose.  And my god, sweet Brenna, forget nap time, what the hell has happened to just  plain old sleeping through the night. She is potty trained (god forbid she pees on Anna, or Elsa, or Olaf) and rarely does she have an accident, but yet her itty, bitty, minuscule butt is in my room on average three nights a week.   On Saturday she just wanted to check in at 3:34 a.m.; on Sunday she fell out of bed around 4 a.m.; last night the flashlight I didn't know she had woke her up at 11:26 p.m. and an excruciating, imaginary pain in her pinkie toe sent her into our room around 2 a.m.

SERIOUSLY.  I haven't slept a full night since we were in California wine country last year.  And let's be honest, I drank a shitton of wine, so that was less sleeping and more just gently passing out.

Dinner time is hell.  Breakfast is painful.  Weirdly, lunch is generally okay, but only because I always make Miss B's plate into a happy face.  I've tried that at other meals and she just scowls at me.  She wants what she wants, which apparently is only to have her plate smile at her during lunch.

 A ton of the time she is a lovebug, a fair chunk of the time I am sure she is plotting a coup.  She gets mad about socks.  About designs on her shirts (Anna and Elsa and Princess Sofia should never be silk screened anywhere but perfectly centered on her tiny belly).  She wants to wear gloves, but they piss her off.  She loves mittens, as long as they don't have teddy bears on them.  She gets down right belligerent when  we don't refer to her as Elsa or Anna or Violet, after she has explicitly explained that that is who she is...until she changes her mind 48 seconds later.

She wants to got potty all by herself, but she gets mad when it's time to wipe.  She likes her hands to be clean, but she hates soap.  She is specific about her PJs, her horrendously mismatched outfits and which seasonally inappropriate shoes she wants to wear.

She thinks her sister is her lackey and that she is the overlord of some 1920s mobster organization.  Brenna effectively bullies a seven year old on a daily basis.  Okay let's be honest, she often bullies a 37 and 38 year old as well.  On occasion, she sucks a grandmother into her underworld, too, and, seriously, that's just not nice.


But I know, with my infinite and profound wisdom, that I will survive this.  One day I will wake up and Miss B. will no longer be three.    Knowing my luck, by the time I have regained my sanity she will thirteen and her sister will be seventeen.    And I will deeply mourn these days.