Three Years Old

On my way home from school yesterday I decided to stop at a Redbox and rent a DVD for our family to watch.

It’s been super-cold out so there has been pretty much no going outside for the boys.

And “inside” usually leads to trouble.

Much of the time, the trouble is in the form of fighting.

And screaming.

And arguing.

Between the boys—not my husband and I.

Well, at least not most of the time.

Besides fighting, inside also always leads to extreme boredom in our three-year old—who for some reason has not developed much of an interest in toys yet.

Oh, he’s interested—for about .5 seconds.

And he wants each and every toy he sees in Wal-Mart.

But then, almost immediately, the toy is forgotten and he’s on to bigger and better things.

Which in reality usually are bigger, but hardly ever better.

If someone had informed me a year ago that our (then two-year old) would still be getting into anything and everything at three, I probably would have cried.

Or ran away for a while.

I’m pretty sure it’s best I didn’t know.

If he’s quiet and hasn’t been seen for a few minutes, it is inevitable that he’s up to no good.

For example, last night during our family movie night, my husband went downstairs for a second.

Keaton followed, while Cale and I kept watching.

After about five minutes, my husband yelled for me.

And that pretty much always means that one of the kids has done something.

Keaton had barricaded himself in the pantry and was eating chocolate milk mix out of the carton.

And I keep that stuff on one of the top shelves.

But, there’s not a shelf tall enough to keep Keaton away.

We’ve caught him standing on top of a cooler which he placed on top of an overturned laundry basket in order to get to a basket of birthday goody bags that were hidden on top of the freezer.

Or so I thought.

So, in the pantry he had chocolate everywhere—on himself and covering the floor.

And in the midst of his chocolate-binge, he apparently needed to go to the bathroom.

But, he wasn’t about to end his sugar-high by stopping to go to actually go> to the toilet.

I think he knew it was just a matter of seconds before he got caught.

So, he went in the pantry.

And now the chocolate milk powder was mixed on the floor.

With pee.

Which just made it that much more of a joy to clean up.

And this behavior is pretty much constant.

This kid really needs a hobby. I’ve tried everything.

Coloring.

Blocks.

Tractors, trains, trucks, super heroes, pirates.

And it always comes back to meddling in drawers.

And we don’t even keep anything good in any of them.

The other day, our five-year old ran down the stairs yelling about his brother.

We went upstairs to find Keaton on top of the bathroom counter, completely covered in butt paste.

Like, head to toe.

The sink was almost overflowing with water and was filled with an assortment of items.

And I wasn’t even surprised.

Not really.

I know this phase will have to end soon.

Literally, it has to.

And I’m not even going to get started talking about the tantrums.

Three is the new two when talking about terrible—at least in our experience.

The other night, I referred to Keaton as “Chuckie”.

Surely you remember Chuckie.

And I’m not saying it was the most endearing nickname to call our baby boy, but I’m also not saying I feel bad about it.

He's scary. Cute, but scary.