What Few Other Parents Hear

3.5 Years: “Hey, Mama, I think you’re doing a really great job taking care of me.”

I never would have expected to hear this. Parenting is a notoriously thankless job. We do it because it’s our duty, not because we will ever be recognized for our efforts (by our kids or anyone else). No matter how much effort we put into the day-to-day struggles of raising our kids, someone will say we’re doing it wrong. And that someone, especially if we have preschoolers or teens, will usually be our own children.

Imagine my surprise when I actually got praised for my parenting by a stubborn and sassy three-year-old. I didn’t expect it, but that one little moment was permanently logged in my memory as something to love and appreciate.

Teenager Meets Toddler

(Image credit: Raised by my Daughter)

3.5 Years:
"Um, Mama. I peed in the hallway just now, and--"
"Honey!!! WHY did you pee in the hallway?"
"Because I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, MOM!!!"
 
If I had to label just one moment in motherhood that truly rocked my world, it was this one. Here I had a child who was suddenly a mouthy teenager— but also, somehow, a normal three-year-old who still wet her pants.

I’ll never forget the way she looked when she said it. The eye roll. The glare of utter defiance. The foot stomp. I half expected her to go to her room and chat with a friend about how parents are so mean and unfair. I was nearly a decade away from buying her first bra, but still somehow facing the attitude of a teenager.

Toddlerhood is a lot like adolescence, and there’s a reason both are considered to be so difficult. They both mark moments of transition—toddlerhood as the stage between infancy and childhood, and adolescence as the stage between childhood and adulthood. Children caught in these stages have minds and bodies that constantly tell them that they’re ready for independence, but we, as their parents, know that they’re not. The result, of course, is that they constantly challenge our authority, until the precious and long-awaited moment when the once-toddler walks into kindergarten, or when the once-teenager graduates college.

I’ve learned since that day that my daughter is what people commonly call “twice exceptional.” She is both gifted and has a significant disability. Now, this doesn’t pose much of a problem, besides making it difficult to meet her educational needs in school. But, at three and a half, it meant that she was not developmentally ready to use the potty full-time, but had a bright and inquisitive mind that told her she was fiercely independent and had no flaws beyond just being a “human being” and “not perfect.” (Mom!)

That’s one of the biggest drawbacks of having a 2E kid—toddlerhood becomes almost insurmountably difficult as the child struggles between feeling smart and independent, and actually being, developmentally, still very much a baby. The same pattern of difficulty tends to follow the child throughout life, and tends to make the teenage years a catastrophe.

People tend to think I’m joking when I say that I dread my daughter’s teen years. While I know that they will, in many ways, be wonderful and magical and full of delights and surprises, I am under no illusions about how difficult they will be. The same child who stomped her foot and declared that she was a human being and not perfect, will one day be fourteen and angry that she isn’t allowed to date a 20-year-old or go on a trip with friends or stay by herself over the weekend. And it’s going to be rough.

But worth every minute.

What a Child Should Know

3.5 Years:
“I know I’m loved.”

Pop quiz: what should a child know by the time she’s three and a half years old? The names of colors? Five-word sentences? Basic grammar? At least 3,000 words?

Well, sure. It can’t hurt to know those things. And most child development experts will tell you that they’re important—and, if your kid isn’t quite up to speed with what’s expected for his age, it’s not a bad idea to get some extra help. Developmental delays exist and, without being addressed, can cause a lot of problems for children.

Still, I think that when you boil it down, there’s only one thing that a three-and-a-half-year-old really needs to know. A three-and-a-half-year-old needs to know that she is loved deeply, completely, and unconditionally. Hearing my daughter say, “I know I’m loved,” without prompting, let me know that I had really succeeded as a parent. If a child knows she’s truly loved, very little else matters.

No Coffee, Just Love

3 Years:
"Mama, are you tired?""Yeah. I think I need coffee. Are you tired?"
"Yeah. But I don't need coffee. I just need love."

When I was a kid, I had noticed that there were some things that parents were especially fond of saying. In particular, they liked saying that their backs ached, that children were on their "last nerve," and that they needed coffee. Always, always, they needed coffee. And they said it in a way that always had some kind of passing subtext, or some sort of secret code they shared with other adults. From the tone they used, I half-believed that "my back hurts" and "I need coffee" actually meant something else altogether, because it seemed strange that adults all shared the same physical and mental needs at the same time, in a way that kids just couldn't get.

It wasn't until I was an adult myself that these things started to make sense. Somehow, between the day we leave high school and the day our kids start talking, all of us seem to develop a constant back ache, a cruel addiction to coffee, and a relentless feeling that the jabbering kids around us were on our last nerves. I don't know how it happened, but it happened to me despite my best efforts to forge some new path into parenthood that didn't involve coffee or back aches.

My daughter said she didn't need coffee, just love. I wish we could all go back to the time when a hug and a kiss were a solution to absolutely every problem in the world.

Parasaurolophus at 3:00

3 Years:
“Um, Mother? I’m a tiny baby parasaurolophus who needs to sleep right next to her mama parasaurolophus in a tiny little nest-bed. And I need to snuggle next to my mama parasaurolophus in case there are troodons who want to eat me.”
“Are you saying you want to sleep in my bed?"

“Um… yes?”

It was 3:40 in the morning.

At 3:40 in the morning, absolutely nothing makes sense, even when it’s condensed into short, accessible words that an average kindergartener would know.

At 3:40 in the morning, I was forced to decode a long string of scientific words behind a paleontologically themed make-believe game that I hadn’t been privy to.

At 3:40 in the morning, I arrived at the most likely conclusion about what was being said, since there are only a few things that a three-year-old is likely to need at 3:40 a.m. It didn’t involve request for water or bathroom help, so it must have been a request to sleep in my bed.

It turned out I was right. I allowed it and, hours later, woke up to a snuggly little kid, who was still convinced that she was a baby parasaurolophus, in my arms.

Sometimes parenthood would be made simpler by a child whose imagination is less active and whose vocabulary is a little more limited, at least at 3:40 in the morning. But simpler parenthood isn’t always rewarding parenthood. I’m more than happy to have the kind of kid who will wake me up late at night with a string of hexasyllabic words and a request for cuddles.