Well Ryder has been 3 for a few months now so I’m kind of getting the gist of what being 3 years old is all about for him.
I have one word: NEGOTIATIONS! He thinks that he should have a say so in just about everything. And when what we “say” doesn’t adhere to his already planned out ideas…he is sure to try to convince us otherwise. It often starts off with “I have a better plan…” The bad part is that his negotiating skills are pretty amazing, so sometimes his ideas really are better. Which doesn’t help when we mean business and cannot/will not change our minds, because then he tries extra hard to convince us, which just leads downhill.
Speaking of downhill, we had our first horrible embarrassing grocery store moment where we were the ones in the check out line with the kid who was throwing a fit! Over a toy! It was so bad, I never want to relive it. Hopefully his punishment was bad enough that we never will have to, but something tells me that all of the months left of him being a 3 year old leaves way too many open doors leading to that dark, scary place again.
Speaking of dark, scary places…being 3 years old is tough and leads to lots of punishment. I don’t know that a single day goes by that he doesn’t get in trouble for something. I’ve heard people say that the 3’s are worse than the 2’s…Yeah, I’d say! This is definitely a very trying age…him TRYING to get under our skin and us TRYING not to kill him.
Oh but there’s always a flip side. Those sweet make up moments where he confesses his love and adoration for his Mommy & Daddy. The cuddling moments where he grabs my hand and says “I’ll never let you go Mommy, you’re mine forever”. He can melt my heart with just a look but his words layer the sweetness on thick.
The day that Ryder turned 3 years old I told him he was a big boy and would be wearing underwear from then on. I dealt with the accidents for a few days following and then they stopped. He even decided he didn’t want pull-ups at night and has only ever had one night time accident! This is pretty exciting for us considering how much the Doctors expressed he’d have a hard time with potty training. With that said, he does “drip” in between his trips to the potty, so his underwear stay a little damp. He is even learning how to pull his pants and underwear up and down, this is a huge challenge for him to do one-handed but Nana has been encouraging him during the day and showing him how to do it with 2 hands.
The most amazing thing happened to this little 3 year old on the night of Mother’s Day. I put him to bed and he told me he was ready to pray and ask Jesus to come into his heart. He did, I cried, and when I got back to our room Daddy had listened to the whole thing over the monitor and even he had tears streaming. The sweetest part was that during his prayer he said “And I’ll lock it up with a key so you can’t ever fly out of there.” I know he’s young and he can’t completely comprehend what it means to give your life to God, but I never want him to forget how important Jesus has been in his life, starting at such a young age.
Another thing I never want to forget are some of his little vocabulary quirks. He has always been pretty good with pronunciation and using his words in the right context…so when he does mix something up, or come up with a new way to say something it’s pretty funny to us. Some examples:
Motecon Retrol = Remote Control
Oven Bread = Any kind of rolls baked in the oven
Up & Down Bridge = The bridge to Maryland
Work Van Truck = Any type of work van or work truck
And lately he has been trailing off at the end of any word that ends in a soft sounds like an S. He’ll say “Thanks ks ks ks” or “lets build blocks ks ks ks”. I asked a speech therapist at the therapy center if it’s possible to stutter at the end of a word and she laughed, said it’s probably just a little quirk of his right now.
Another quirk of his that I hope passes soon is that you can’t say the word Tomorrow in front of him without him yelling “Tomorrow I’m going to baseball!” The background here is that the day he got put to sleep for botox he told the nurse he wanted to play baseball and she said “well you probably won’t be able to do that until tomorrow”. Apparently he has no concept of what tomorrow really means, to him it must be like a day that hasn’t gotten here yet or something because for the past 2 months anytime the word tomorrow is mentioned you will here “TOMORROW I HAVE TO GO TO BASEBALL!!!”
Another quirk are his 2 little fantasy worlds he lives in. The first is with his Grandma up in Heaven. Any time he finds something he really likes or wants you to let him do something he will say “My Grandma up in Heaven ALWAYS used to let me eat Chocolate before bed. She loves me. My Grandma up in Heaven wears Green shirts because she knows that’s my favorite color. My Grandma up in Heaven alwayssss used to buy me these cookies from the store!” I love that he talks about his Grandma all the time, it helps keep her memory alive in our house…and it’s just funny considering he has never even met her but you’d think she’s the closest person to him. The other one is his Fire Station that he says he owns. Any time we’re driving somewhere he’ll say “I’ll tell you when we pass my fire station” and if we are ever looking for something he’ll say “don’t worry I have an extra _____ at my firestation, we can just drive by there and pick it up.” He will go into great detail about what his fire station looks like, what people do there, what supplies he has there, etc.
So that sums up our 3 year old Ryder…he’s mischievous, quirky, bad, good, loveable, silly, with the best imagination, and we can’t forget hilarious. I’ll end with some of his latest funnies:
One day Ryder & Alan were in the car together making a trip to the store. I called to check in with them and Alan had me on speaker phone. I could hear Ryder laughing in the background so I said “Ryder what is so funny???” He said “Mommy your husband his hilarious!!!”
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The other morning Ryder was in his sisters face picking on her, I was getting irritated for her so I yelled at him pretty loudly “would you leave her ALONE??!!!” Without even acknowledging me, he looked at Maisy and said “Come here Maze, don’t go near her, she’s as scary as a ghost!”
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“Mommyyyyyyyyyyy” Ryder came running in from outside “I know how to spell Work Van Truck!!!!”
Me: “Wow, you do??”
Ryder: “YES! B – F – P – E!!” (those would be the letters on the side of Alan’s work truck).
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This morning Maisy went in Ryder’s room to help wake him up and I heard Ryder yelling at her “Maissyyyy don’t mess up my trap!! Get away from my trap!!!” I walked in his room and said “what trap are you talking about???” As I saw that he had put 2 little chairs next to his bed with a bucket in each one. He said “I set up these monster traps to catch any monsters that come near me when I’m sleeping!”
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The other night he started yelling for me about 15 minutes after I put him to bed telling me he had to pee. I had suspicions that he was just telling stories, but of course I went and got him, we ran to the bathroom, pulled his pants down, then we were both just standing there staring at each other. I said “Ryder, seriously, do you have to pee or what??” He said “Mom, be patient, it takes like an hour to come!”
