Two is Easy, Three is Hard

I took the kids into the doctor's Friday. Little Viking Girl had her two year check-up, Baby #3 his two month check-up, and Hulk was there for the flu vaccine. Taking three kids to the doctor's is challenging.

While there, the doctor and I spoke a little bit about Little Viking Girl and she told me that "two is easy, three is hard" in reference to Viking Girl's age. In English, we say "the terrible two's" but in Spanish (and I assume other Latin based languages) they say "los terribles tres" - or the terrible threes.

We're doing ok.

Potty-training was a good learning experience for J and I. We have to let go and let Little Viking Girl take the lead. We have to pick our battles, we have to be consistent, and we need to trust her. Which is hard when working with a two-year old.

With potty-training, we couldn't do the standard "set an alarm and every 20 minutes put her on the toilet." If she didn't want to sit, she was not going to sit. And it became war. So we kept her in panties, when she had an accident we would sit her on the toilet, tell her that's what the toilet is for, clean her up, and do that all over again. She caught on pretty quick but we had to trust her to tell us. And some days I felt like she didn't care if she had pee soaked clothes or not; but we got there.

Last night, there was a Halloween party at our church. The kids dressed in their Halloween costumes and went around the gym to trick-or-treat (it was raining outside otherwise we would have done trunk-or-treat in the parking lot).

I love family themed Halloween costumes. I think they're more fun and let us work together as we come up with costume ideas. Because Little Viking Girl is too young to fully grasp the idea of Halloween we let Hulk take the lead in planning our costumes (she knows she likes candy but she has no idea why people are giving her candy, cognitively I don't expect her to grasp the concept for two more years).

This year he wanted to be a police officer, Little Viking Girl was going to be a fire fighter, J a construction worker, and I would be a doctor. Baby #3 was going as a giraffe which totally clashed with our theme but that costume has been worn by Little Viking Girl and Hulk so at this point IT'S TRADITION.

I had the kids put on their costumes before we left but as I was getting us ready to go Little Viking Girl decided she was not going to wear hers anymore. I figured that was fine and packed the costume in the diaper bag for her to put on once we got to church. At church, she was very firm in not wanting to put on the costume. Instead, she stole the name tags from my doctor's costume.

It worked.

Everyone thought she was a nurse (or me, since I worked in a research lab).

And she had fun getting candy.

Because it was raining out, all the parents lined up around the perimeter of the gym and the kids walked along trick-or-treating. I stayed in line with Baby #3 and Hulk gently led Little Viking Girl down the line. She had the cutest confused expression on her face and Hulk was such a great big brother helping her. I was very proud of him.

This morning before church Little Viking Girl decided that she was going to wear a bright orange basketball shirt and nike leggings to our sacrament service.

I chose my battle and said no.

She went to church in a dress but she picked out her shoes and socks.

It worked.

The world needs more strong willed women.

I am lucky enough to be raising one of them.