There is a psychological war going on in my home.
My three year old is the enemy general.
I can’t tell you how smug I was when my toddler turned 3. In that moment we realised that we had survived the ‘terrible-twos’ unscathed. He was the perfect sleeper, and a joy to be around all day.
We must be such good parents. We set boundaries, taught him manners, and now we are reaping the rewards, having cultivated this emotionally patient and mature toddler.
Oh no, no, no, no.
Our toddler’s good behaviour and amenable personality were nothing to do with us. It was his character. And we were fortunate enough to benefit from it for a whole two years.
He slept well, he shared his toys and he enjoyed sitting quietly in cafes while we drank coffee and enjoyed being parents.
Little did we know, he was a ticking time bomb.
He was watching us, learning from us, and now, shortly after turning 3, he is launching his attack.
I write this to you from a bunker, deep behind enemy lines.
In other words, I’m in my home office while my son is at nursery.
Here is a brief summary of the changes we have noticed during this new phase and about the crazed ‘threenager’ against whom we feel in near constant battle.
1/ My way or the highway.
My son has decided that he must do everything himself. This includes things he quite plainly can’t do himself. Like painting walls, carrying shopping, driving our car, opening a can of soup, doing my job and washing our car.
It’s always when any one of these tasks needs to be done most quickly and efficiently that the shrieking enemy emerges from the body of its 3 year-old host.
His feet stamp, his fists tense up and his voice elevates to a shrill pitch that would have the Spartan 300 quaking in their boots.
“I’ll do it!”
Please, son. Just let me drive the car, we’re late.
“No, I’ll do it!”
You can’t drive the car, it’s against the law.
“No Daddy! I want to do iiiiiiit.”
The sheer power behind his conviction is something to behold.
But we don’t budge.
I won’t let my 3 year old drive my car to Sainsbury’s. I just won’t.
2/ The morning drill sergeant.
Gone is the 7pm till 7am sleeper of two years old that I used to know.
Oh no. Frequently during the night he’ll need us by his side. Either to ask questions like:
“Daddy? Where do beavers live?”
“Son.. Please. It’s 2 in the morning.”
Or, he’s lost his teddy. Or, he needs his duvet pulling up. It could really be anything.
But in the morning it gets serious. He arrives at our bedside with a scowl, stamps on the floor, screams like a dinosaur and orders us up and out of bed.
It’s barely 5am and I feel as though my head only just hit the pillow.
There’s no time to think – the day has begun and he is taking no prisoners.
3/ Re-use, re-cycle.
He. Won’t. Let. Us. Throw. Anything. Away.
At first it was packaging, and old magazines. Now our living room is regularly filled with cardboard boxes, polystyrene filling, wrapping paper and empty paint tins.
Woe betide anyone who tries to take this mountain of rubbish to the tip.
The polystyrene is shedding little white balls over everything. It’s like a permanent, tacky tribute to Christmas.
Except it’s bloody May.
4/ Mummy’s boy.
As soon as he’s a bit tired, he becomes completely disinterested in Daddy.
In fact, he hates me. I’m not allowed to sit next to him, I’m not allowed to touch his things.
I’m not allowed to look at him, talk to him or talk about him.
On the upside, I’m excerpt from parenting duties for large swathes of the day.
On the downside, my brilliant and patient wife is occasionally driven to tears by the furious way he shouts at me.
So what do we do?
It’s not a rhetorical question. What the hell do we do?
It feels like a constant battle.
Our guts are telling us that we ride this out and give us much love and firm discipline as we possibly can.
He can have temper tantrums, cry and scream all he likes but we hold firm and keep as calm as we possibly can.
Thank god for my wife, our teamwork and the fact that when he goes down after 2 hours of years and fury, we can sit down, have a gin and tonic and prepare for tomorrow’s battle together.
