Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Terrible threes?

Whenever Brian and I would complain about Ellie's behavior in the past year people would readily chime in with "wait till she's 3." I hate to say it, but they were right... at least sort of.
Ellie is the queen of tantrums and back talk in recent weeks. She loves to shout "Nooooooooo!" if we correct her bad behaviour, even though that's never been greeted with any agreement from us. It almost always results in a time out. We have a lot of time outs these days. But we're also trying hard to talk Ellie through problems, and to nip bad behavior in the bud with early warnings and the 1-2-3 counting system. We have varying degrees of success. It largely depends on how tired she is. Our lives often seem to revolve around how much sleep one or both girls have gotten that day... and, sadly, never around our own lack of sleep. Such is life as a parent.
I will say that Ellie's explosion of personality at the age of 3 is a huge plus! We can have real conversations and it is amazing. Just tonight she gave me a laundry list of what she did at school today: was best friends with Olivia, played at the water table with Andy, played babies and puzzles and art. So much fun to be able to recount her day together -- especially when I have to spend so many hours away from her at work. The teachers at school are also working on some of her speech "quirks," one being her inability to say "L's"... which is definitely a handicap considering her name. She now knows how to say "El-thee" by sticking her tongue way out and running it back along her front teeth. El-thee. Pretty cool.
I think we are going to have a love-hate relationship with the age of 3.

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