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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2ew1tPa:jay-linden replied to your post “jay-linden replied to your post “Welp. So far, it’s 39 outside, 49…”
I didn’t come up with ‘threenager’, but good god, is it accurate. It really is a brief look at what the teen years will be like, all attitude and sass. I don’t know how I survived it with my twins. I don’t know how my twins survived it. Right… because cute. Because otherwise….
I can’t even really imagine surviving twins under any circumstances. One of my cousins has twins and she’s just– resigned. She has a 4-year-old, and then 2-yr-old twins, and she’s like, well, the house isn’t on fire and i fed them today, the rest is details. The one had something like 40 ear infections in a single year. The other broke his arm by tripping and falling over nothing, which is like, that’s not how a child that young breaks his arm, but that’s how her luck works. (He didn’t cry, he just came and showed her that his wrist was bending in a way it shouldn’t, and she was like buddy, what the hell, and he literally shrugged. He wasn’t very verbal at that point but his reasoning was spot on.)
So she’s just kind of hanging on. I can’t imagine, I just can’t.
… Does it get better when they’re four? Because it has to sometime, doesn’t it??
Academically I can often see, Farmbaby’s being As Obnoxious As Possible because she doesn’t understand yet why we react so strongly, so she’s testing us to find out what’s going on. And so it’s not like she’s trying to hurt us; she doesn’t really have a grasp on empathy yet and doesn’t understand how or why we feel pain, and she’s not 100% on positive vs negative reactions; all attention is good, is the thing, and she likes some better than others, but isn’t sure why. She has the makings of a very empathetic child; she knows Grandma has a bad ankle and asks after it, but then forgets and tears off and makes Grandma chase her. She remembers sometimes that, for example, someone’s husband was sick last time so he didn’t come along, so she’ll ask if he’s better, that kind of thing. She knows her father has a bad back sometimes, and often when he asks, she’ll climb up onto a chair so he can pick her up without bending, when it’s bad. But she’ll forget, of course, and immediately after, will do something that hurts him. So it’s not that she wants to hurt us. She just doesn’t really understand the concept.
If you’re really well-rested and otherwise well-emotionally-cared-for, it’s possible to keep that in mind at all times when dealing with a young child in a boundary-testing phase, and stay in a good humor yourself. But I can’t do it for more than a few hours in a week. I don’t understand how parents manage it for interminable stretches, and bless those who do.
I played a game with her the other day where I did whatever she said. First she led me through some yoga-style stretches she’d obviously learned at school, before tearing off and running around in circles. I followed her. Then she stopped, turned around, and hit me in the leg with her hand, and said, “Now hit me back!” and when I refused, she grabbed my hand and hurled her chest against it, proclaiming “HHHHIIITTTT!!!” as if in slow-motion. It was freaking adorable. But the best part is that we were next to the garden, which is right by the highway, so a large number of people on that busy road saw a thirtysomething-year-old woman tearing around like a crazy person and probably couldn’t see the kid because there’s an embankment she’s short enough to probably have been hidden behind, so they just thought I was some kind of wacko.
The other cutness: She’s taken to exclaiming “It’s no use!” when she tries to do something and doesn’t immediately succeed, which she clearly got from a TV show or something, but it’s so goddamn melodramatic it’s impossible not to burst out laughing when you hear her do it.
I didn’t come up with ‘threenager’, but good god, is it accurate. It really is a brief look at what the teen years will be like, all attitude and sass. I don’t know how I survived it with my twins. I don’t know how my twins survived it. Right… because cute. Because otherwise….
I can’t even really imagine surviving twins under any circumstances. One of my cousins has twins and she’s just– resigned. She has a 4-year-old, and then 2-yr-old twins, and she’s like, well, the house isn’t on fire and i fed them today, the rest is details. The one had something like 40 ear infections in a single year. The other broke his arm by tripping and falling over nothing, which is like, that’s not how a child that young breaks his arm, but that’s how her luck works. (He didn’t cry, he just came and showed her that his wrist was bending in a way it shouldn’t, and she was like buddy, what the hell, and he literally shrugged. He wasn’t very verbal at that point but his reasoning was spot on.)
So she’s just kind of hanging on. I can’t imagine, I just can’t.
… Does it get better when they’re four? Because it has to sometime, doesn’t it??
Academically I can often see, Farmbaby’s being As Obnoxious As Possible because she doesn’t understand yet why we react so strongly, so she’s testing us to find out what’s going on. And so it’s not like she’s trying to hurt us; she doesn’t really have a grasp on empathy yet and doesn’t understand how or why we feel pain, and she’s not 100% on positive vs negative reactions; all attention is good, is the thing, and she likes some better than others, but isn’t sure why. She has the makings of a very empathetic child; she knows Grandma has a bad ankle and asks after it, but then forgets and tears off and makes Grandma chase her. She remembers sometimes that, for example, someone’s husband was sick last time so he didn’t come along, so she’ll ask if he’s better, that kind of thing. She knows her father has a bad back sometimes, and often when he asks, she’ll climb up onto a chair so he can pick her up without bending, when it’s bad. But she’ll forget, of course, and immediately after, will do something that hurts him. So it’s not that she wants to hurt us. She just doesn’t really understand the concept.
If you’re really well-rested and otherwise well-emotionally-cared-for, it’s possible to keep that in mind at all times when dealing with a young child in a boundary-testing phase, and stay in a good humor yourself. But I can’t do it for more than a few hours in a week. I don’t understand how parents manage it for interminable stretches, and bless those who do.
I played a game with her the other day where I did whatever she said. First she led me through some yoga-style stretches she’d obviously learned at school, before tearing off and running around in circles. I followed her. Then she stopped, turned around, and hit me in the leg with her hand, and said, “Now hit me back!” and when I refused, she grabbed my hand and hurled her chest against it, proclaiming “HHHHIIITTTT!!!” as if in slow-motion. It was freaking adorable. But the best part is that we were next to the garden, which is right by the highway, so a large number of people on that busy road saw a thirtysomething-year-old woman tearing around like a crazy person and probably couldn’t see the kid because there’s an embankment she’s short enough to probably have been hidden behind, so they just thought I was some kind of wacko.
The other cutness: She’s taken to exclaiming “It’s no use!” when she tries to do something and doesn’t immediately succeed, which she clearly got from a TV show or something, but it’s so goddamn melodramatic it’s impossible not to burst out laughing when you hear her do it.
