Stuff My Threenager Says

My three-year old is the boss of everything.

To be fair, I didn't really experience the gravity of the terrible twos with my eldest daughter. Maybe because I found everything she did terribly amusing. But the third year is posing to be more of a challenge for us.  She went from being this cute little toddler who struggles to string words together to make us understand what she wants to say, to this headstrong little lady who can now argue her way into getting something.

 She's opinionated, she's moody and boy does she love to make a face when we tell her to behave.    Yes, ladies and gents, I am now raising a threenager.*

The threenager is that age when your 3-year-old continually acts like they are going on 13. They have an attitude for miles, a stubborn streak, and want what they want... when they want, blogger Kristen Hewitt wrote in the article "10 Signs You Are Living With a Threenager."

Nash has always been advanced with her vocabulary (she learned to talk and sing before she could actually walk), but lately her choice of words has really evolved.  Most of the time I just shake my head because I can't believe that came from the mouth of a three-year old.  No swear words though, that is never allowed in our house.  But let me share them with you while I still find them amusing (it will be a different story if she talks like this when she's 15, that's for sure), some of my threenager's favorite words and how she uses them:

"Come on!" - usually a response to no, or later.  Whenever I don't agree on what she wants to happen.

"That's not gonna happen." - when I ask her to do something and she doesn't want to do it.

"Stop acting, Mommy." - when I pretend to be mad at someone else in the house. How did she know I was just acting, anyway?

"I'm bored. I wanna do something." - basically when she's bored, and the iPad/my phone is nowhere to be found.

"I'm not wearing that." - used quite often.  When she doesn't agree on my choice of outfit for her, which is usually something that isn't pink.

"That's not fair." - when things don't go her way. Like when her Tatay and her uncle has to leave for the office.

"She/he's not my friend." - usually when we have a friend with us (meaning my friend or her Tatay's friend) and she's not feeling that person, and she doesn't want him or her to ride in the car with us.

"Don't shout at me." - I found this totally amusing because she said it with much gusto when the person she was really saying that too wasn't even shouting or raising her voice at her (the woman was just naturally high-pitched). I therefore conclude that threenagers are sensitive.

"Don't be mad at her." - her referring to her baby sister or her favorite cousin, when we try to discipline them.  She can be too protective at times.  #tagapagtanggolngnaaapi

I'm sure there's a lot more that I couldn't remember at this moment. Yes, it really sounds funny and I'm the first one to be really amused when I hear her talk like this, but I try not to laugh and tell her when she's not being nice.  I know, I don't really have to explain myself.

She's growing up too fast and every day I pray that God will grant me the patience and the wisdom to guide her to be the best person that she can be, kind and polite, just like her ... Tatay.

Earlier, after she changed into her jammies, drank her milk, and finished watching "Wreck It Ralph" for the nth time, she called me and said, "Mommy, can you please sleep beside me?" I felt a tug at my heartstrings. At the end of what can be considered a tiring day for the two of us (me watching over her and her little sister and her, playing all day), she still longed for me just like when she was a helpless infant.  So I put my phone aside and lay down beside her.  I asked her if she would want me to sing to her, and she said "Can you please carry me?" She weighs over 16 kilos now, but I happily obliged.  She fell asleep in a few minutes in my arms.  Snoring like an adult. Tomorrow she'll have enough energy to pretend to be Ms. Bossypants, this little diva again.  But I know in my heart, she will always be my little baby.

*Can relate? I'd love to hear from other moms of girls, or moms of threenagers out there.

Does the Perfect Mother Even Exist?

Is there really such a thing? Or is it just a myth that all of us moms beat ourselves up to becoming?

When I was pregnant with my first child, I read up on a lot of books and articles to best prepare me on being a mother.  I was very sure on the things I would do - breastfeed (for at least three months, I told myself), use only cloth diapers for the baby, listen to classical music while the baby was in my womb, going all organic on my baby - everything to ensure that she would have the best, most perfect life possible.  Then I gave birth and for a second, it seemed like I did just that.  I felt that I was becoming the supermom that I was destined to be (yeah yeah, #blessed, I know). It sure looked like that on the outside.

But the truth was, I had a lot of help. I never would have been able to do all those things for my daughter if not for my husband, our families and all those groups I joined on Facebook.  My husband supported my decision of being a stay at home mom, and my own mother helped me a lot; she would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and feed Nash with my expressed milk so that I could get more sleep and cooked and mashed veggies for Nash when she was ready to eat solids. We hired a helper to wash the cloth diapers, and my in-laws would watch the baby so that I can have a few hours to go to the gym.  I will always be grateful to them for the help, but even more for their support and respect for our decisions on how we want to raise our children .

Social media taught me a lot too; I got so much information about breastfeeding, and cloth diapers and weaning from the support groups I joined on Facebook. I recently came across a really interesting article on Time Magazine entitled, "Help! My parents are millennials."  It somehow compared parenting in this generation to the previous ones. It also revealed an interesting reality: while parents of all ages are most likely to turn to their own parents for advice, millennials cast their net to Facebook, Twitter, blogs and apps. That was certainly true in my case.

But there is also a downside to it.  If you want to bring out the insecurities of a person, social media really works. And I think, next to teenagers, moms are the next ones most affected by what they see and read online.  With almost every milestone of our kids' lives documented on Facebook or Instagram, we go to great lengths to make sure our kids "measure up" to those imaginary standards we have set in social media.  We make sure their outfits are well-coordinated for their #babyootd, we bring them to the "it" play places in the metro, take lots of pictures and post it on Facebook, and fill our timelines with short anecdotes of how cute and brainy they are.  Hey, I'm not against anything like this, okay? I love reading about your "conversations" with your little ones. It's cute, I agree.

But it's not just about the kids; it's more about us, how we want the world to see us as moms.   We cyber-stalk some of our fellow mommy friends just to see what they're up to, how they are with their kids and sadly, we come up with conclusions on what kind of mother they are based on what we see on Facebook or Instagram.  We scrutinize and pick on every tiny flaw that we see in them as if that gives us some sort of validation that they aren't perfect after all.  What is it, really?  Is it our own insecurities reflecting back at us, making us feel a little better knowing that we're not the worst mother around and somebody else might be doing a worse job than us?  If that gives us satisfaction, then we must really be more twisted than we think.

While it's admirable that we want to give the best and be our best selves to our children, the truth is there's no such thing as a perfect mother.  You can be the best in this certain "parenting skill," but somewhere out there, or maybe even in our own social media circle, there will always be someone who is better than you at something else; someone who can pump and store more milk, someone whose kids are already reading or potty-trained, someone who was able to shed the baby weight in a snap and always looked put-together, someone who can do the bento food art like a boss (one day, I'll be able to do that too) and someone who can (insert your insecurity here) better than you.  It's exhausting just to keep track at which mom is doing better than you at something. But I bet you have something in common with this person - you're both hell-bent on being the best mother you can be to your children. So why the hate?

I'm not saying we should all stop trying.  What I'm saying is that we have to stop comparing ourselves to other moms out there. Stop the judging and the "mommy-shaming" and be kind. Be kind to other mothers in your area and your social media circle. We are all in this together. But most important of all, be kind to yourself. It's okay if you're not perfect. 

I am so far from being perfect. In the three years that I have been a mother to two girls, my parenting status/philosophy went from "Only the Best" to "Kaliwali," which is a favorite Arabic word among Pinoys in the Middle East meaning "Let it be" or "Never Mind." All those parenting no-nos from books have gone out the window and just focusing on what works as we go along. But on a really random day, my three-year old daughter came up to me and told me, "Mom, you're the best" with matching thumbs up sign.  I'm don't know if she really understood what that meant, but coming from her, I'd take that compliment at any given day.  Coming from her, it sure sounded a whole lot better than perfect.