“Should I have a third?”
My answer is always the same, “It depends; it is a game
changer.” I don’t regret a single minute
of my world with SH3 in it—not one single minute. She is by far my worst sleeper. She wakes up early and yells at her sister until
she wakes up too. She strips her diaper
off, clogs the toilet and poops on the floor.
She pushes a chair to the counter and in a bin of 100 washable pens finds the
Sharpie and hides to ruin furniture, walls, and clothes in peace. She eats dirt, play-dough, beads, anything
really. I have nightmares of her eating
a button battery and my sleep deprived mind invents the unbelievably horrific
sequelae that will ensue (honest truth—multiple nightmares). We have to tell ourselves, BH1 and I, not to
let her, SH1, or SH2 over hear us call her “trouble” or “the destroyer of fun” under
our breath because that is likely not good for any child’s psyche.
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| Yes that is Desitin...head to toe purple tube Desitin |
She gets to keep her pacifier far longer than we ever
thought of letting the other two have one.
We tried potty training for a week and gave up until “she is
ready”. I have been known to look away
when I see her hit her sibling in hopes that they won’t tattle and I won’t have
to punish her. Time out for her is mere
seconds and certainly not the requisite two minutes her siblings would have sat. She doesn’t have to sit in the high chair or
wear a bib although she is the messiest eater.
We watch what she wants on TV because her cries for “Peep and The Big
Wide World” are loudest. She has this
ridiculous ugly stuffed rabbit with plastic scratched off eyes that is
lovingly called “Babbit” and we all take to searching the ends of the earth to find
it when it goes missing. Some part of me wants to say that she has
clearly taken the fight out of me, but maybe that is good. Maybe she took the fight out of me for all
the fights that don’t need to be had. I may be close to admitting that my two year old has taught me to pick my
battles.
