Okay, Elsie, I've got my tea, had my bath, got recharged and now I'm ready to take on the task of writing about your life as a three year old.
When you were three you had to keep learning how to be a big sister. This was really hard, but you've also been having some fun teaching Arthur how to jump on the bed and playing with him on the slide in the backyard. I think the worst part of having a baby brother, so far for you, has been the change in what we've been able to do together. We've been planning our days around Arthur's naps, so that means we don't get to go to as many playgroups. It's been difficult for you to adjust to being quiet and finding quiet things to do while I'm putting Arthur to sleep and even while he's napping. This means a whole lot of show-watching, which you really enjoy, but which leaves me feeling guilty for not coming up with other things for you to do.
That leads me to thinking about how it's been really frustrating for you to try new activities when you know that you won't be "good at it". The concept of practicing to achieve competency is not something you have very much patience for. So, we try to work with this to avoid overwhelming you with frustration, but also to keep you open to things that may bring you joy. For example, you are often in the mood for making really expressive paintings that look like parties, but if we try to color in a coloring book you tend to find the pressure of the lines a bit dampening. Also, you are just so great at riding your balance bike, but you are fairly uninterested in your new pedal bike (which you have been asking for, I remind you). So we don't talk very much about your pedal bike and hope that you'll get the urge to master it someday.
One thing about you that persists through the years is that you have an amazing imagination. You play so well and happily with your stuffies, figures, and ponies and you create long stories with them, but if you catch us listening in you get shy and tell us to go to another room :)
You often ask me to play with you and I do generally have dedicated play time with you once a day, but I often feel like you play so much better without me. I usually don't play with the toys just the way you want me to and you get upset about that. There have been a lot of meltdowns related to this problem. For some reason, Papa doesn't bother you as much when he plays with you. I think it's because he waits for you to do all the story making and then tries to say as little as possible. This suits you better and I am trying to do this more.
You've discovered user-produced content on YouTube that features ponies having pool parties and people opening new toys and playing with them. This is so "up your alley". You will often get so many ideas for playing with your toys from this and sometimes even try to make your own videos. Right now, you speak too softly for the camera and we haven't got a good zoom lens, but it's certainly something we can keep working on. You also really loved watching Masha and the Bear when you were three. Papa and I decided that you couldn't watch it anymore because you seemed to behave differently (not in a good way) and treat the animals poorly when you watched it. We explained this to you a few times and said you could watch it again when you were older and could understand that the way Masha behaved was not something to copied. Today, you were having a sick day (and you are 4 now) and you asked to watch Masha and the Bear. I said it would be okay and you did watch for awhile. After a while you didn't want to watch it any more and I asked why. You said that you were feeling like if Eeloo walked into the room, you would pull her tail. So, maybe we'll wait until you're 5 years old.
Last summer, you played a lot in your playhouse that Papa built for you. I would take Arthur out and lay out a blanket in a shady spot. It was hard for me to play with you and keep an eye on Arthur, but we worked it out. You found much of the summer too hot to be playing outside. Hopefully, our new house will have more shady spaces for you to play in and it doesn't get as hot in Charlottetown as it does here.
Our winter was filled with music videos and dancing. If you were feeling blue, I could usually blast "Feel Better When I'm Dancing" and that would get you dancing and feeling energized. We listened to just about all of the Walk Off the Earth songs, Kinley Dowling, OK Go, Pentatonix and some Bruno Mars songs, but not the one "with too many bums". You like to hold hands when you're dancing and I wonder if this solves the age-old question of what to do with your hands. Do three year-old kids already have awkward hands?!
So what else did we do when you were three? We baked, with you stirring the ingredients but mostly only stirring the stuff at the top. Your favorite craft is making cards with stickers and paint, so we did make a lot of cards. We passed the time by visiting the thrift store so often that you came to think of it as a routine procedure. When we go into our town, you nearly always want to stop at the coffee shop for a brownie. Sometimes you eat the whole thing, but there are also times when I get to have the leftovers. You learned how to actually play hide and seek, so we had fun with that. You're still a little fuzzy on the rules for tag, in that you always want to be it, but you also always want to get chased. We did a little bit of travelling to Elliot Lake and New Brunswick (and the camp, of course).
You still say "gank you" which is so sweet to our ears. This evening you said you wanted "banilla" ice cream from the store and I said that I didn't know that "you had wanted vanilla ice cream", to which you replied, "I said banilla". Like I had made the mistake and like there actually is a banilla flavour. You are recognizing written words as there have been quite a few times when you've said what was written with no possible way of having had a contextual clue ("spooky stories" is one of the recognized phrases).
The toughest part of the last year for me and Papa, has been trying to navigate through your emotional roller coaster. There has been a lot of loud screaming that seems to send us into fight or flight mode. You are sensitive about so many things that we don't know how to relate to, so we need to really stretch ourselves to understand how you may be feeling. This is the stuff that makes us feel worn out. I think you are dealing with a mixture of boredom, frustration (knowing what you want to do but not able to execute the plan), and you are sensing the murmur of anxiety that we are feeling regarding moving and selling our house.
Ultimately, we love you so much and just want you to be able to do "normal kid stuff" and have fun and smile. I think the time will come where we understand you better and we can all work together to make the good things happen.
(This was written in June 2017 but only published in October 2017)
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