Illogical, crazy three

Some time ago, I read someone's article or blog post or something about having a three year old and how frustrating it was that they were so illogical and so volatile. Blowing up over the silliest things, having meltdowns over wrong socks and a bowl placed just ever so slightly off centre.

And I thought ... boy, that will be fun.

(No, never for a minute did I even dare to hope that it wouldn't happen to us.)

But then I thought -- geez, how much worse can it be than a two year old meltdown in the store, a temper tantrum on the floor?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

And I mean that literally. Over the past few weeks we've kind of moved more from the temper-tantrumy stage into the crazy meltdown stage, and oh, man, if you can keep your sense of humour, this stage is GREAT.

Me: ok, what do you want for breakfast?

Him: cheese toast! (what he wants EVERY -- and I mean EVERY -- morning)

Me: ok (why mess with a good thing? It's whole wheat toast!) (looks in fridge) (at the front, there is the new package of cheese bought yesterday; behind it is the half-finished block of cheese from earlier this week.) (We eat a lot of cheese in this house.)

Child grabs the new cheese.

Me: No, not that one, the other one.

Him: NO!! NOOOOOOO!!!! I WANT THIS ONE! I WANT THIS ONE! WAAAAAAA!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO, I CAN'T EAT THAT ONE, I WANT THIS ONE!!! WAAAA!

Me: .... ..... ....... are you serious??

I just couldn't think of anything else to say. He looks more and more like a normal, if small, human being, and then there's this completely INSANE streak within him that sometimes comes out. It almost feels like as if someone like one of your co-workers starting wailing on the floor over you using the last of the coffee in the office coffee pot. You'd be completely taken aback, you would be. As I often am. This morning's other exchange:

Him: wake up mommy! it's wake up time! here, I'll help you. (pulls off nice warm covers and grabs my hand to haul my butt out of bed.)

Me: hnunhg

Him: (sing-song) come on mommy, it's wake up time! (still pulling at my hand)

Me: (waking up) ok, sweetie, just a moment. Mommy (really have to get out of the habit of talking about myself in the third person) needs to go to the bathroom.

Him: NO!!! NO NO NO NO NO!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO PEE!!

Me: Yes ... yes I do.

Him: NO NO NO NO NO! I DON'T WANT TO, I DON'T HAVE TO GO PEE, YOU DON'T NEED TO EITHER!!!

Now I am a push over mommy, I admit, but dammit, I stick to my guns when it comes to pee, so we ended up with me in the bathroom and him sitting on my lap.

Huh. Yeah, that's still being a push over, isn't it??