Raising a Precocious Preschooler

He can’t be doing it on purpose. He’s just too young for that. But it’s driving me CRAZY.

 

Normally I keep a positive outlook about my children when I’m blogging. This is deliberate, not because irritations don’t exist, but because I think the general attitude of culture to children is very unfriendly. Children are seen as a bother, something to be put off as long as possible, incredibly expensive, etc. My opinions on these matters are quite, shall we say, passionate. But they are beside the point of this post.

 

Alex is now 3 ½. He is frequently sweet, kind, caring, and he almost always approaches life with enthusiasm and a zest bordering on hyperactivity. He is endlessly imaginative, deeply inquisitive, he sings on key, and is usually very independent at play. (Meaning he doesn’t need me.)

 

However.

 

Inquisitiveness leads to inquisition. “How do we build a plastic chair?” Before I finish the answer, it’s “How do we build a hospital?” Before I’ve even begun, it’s “But Mommy, how do we…?” And then there’s the name thing. I longed for years to be called “Mommy.” Who would ever have thought I’d be ready to scream the next time I hear it? But lately, Alex begins every single sentence with it. “Mommy, do we have to go to church tonight?” Yes. “Mommy, can I play the red drums?” We’ll see. “Mommy, I like playing the red drums.” I know, honey. “Mommy, can I eat all my chicken, and not give any to Julianna?” Yes, I made Julianna her own. “Mommy, will you…Mommy, do I…” Then, knowing he’s lost his train of thought, he’ll fall back to his standard: “Mommy, how do we build…?”

 

It happens at other times, too. Today we left the house to go to the play place for lunch, but we had to go to the bank and pick up the video camera from the repair shop first. “Are we going to Old McDonald’s?” he asked.

 

Now, let me interject that I DETEST McDonald’s, on par with my loathing for Wal Mart. But on long trips we always eat at McDonald’s because of the play places. I will beg, “Anywhere but McDonald’s. Please, please!” But Alex sees a McDonald’s, shouts, “Oooooh! An Old McDonald’s!” and then we’re stuck. Lately my loathing has intensified because I have discovered that there is literally nothing on the menu that I like, with the single exception of the yogurt parfait, and a yogurt parfait does not a meal make, especially now that it’s half the size it used to be.

 

The point of this long tangent is that today, I told him we’re not going to McDonald’s—we’re going to a really big play place at a different store called Burger King. “You understand?” I asked.

 

“Yeah. But Mommy, after we go to the bank are we going to the Old McDonald’s?”

 

“No, Alex. Listen to me. We’re going to a different play place today. It’s called Burger King. But first we have some errands to run. We have to go to the bank and pick up the camera, and then we’ll go to the play place.”

 

“Okay.” Short interval while we make a bank deposit. As we pull out, Alex pipes up, “Mommy, are we going to Old McDonald’s now?”

 

At this point, I lose my temper and tell him that if he’s going to ask questions he needs to listen to the answer.

 

Then there’s the inevitable “Why?” Go the bathroom. “Why?” Pull out the stepstool. “Why?” We have to put our shoes on if you want to play outside. “Why?”

 

I’m not one, like my sister Tamara, who swore I’d never say “because I said so.” But neither am I one to jump straight to it. However, sometimes even “because I said so” is not strong enough. This morning I reverted to, “I said it, and that ought to be enough for you!”

 

Lately I’ve been losing my temper with him. I don’t like that in myself, but he drives me CRAZY. Our house is not particularly tidy, but it’s far from a pigsty. Yet if there is something on the floor—towel, book, toy, baby sister—Alex goes out of his way to step on it. I get so mad at him. I can’t get it into his head that you walk on the FLOOR, not on your SISTER. He just doesn’t think.

 

I know, he’s three. But when is the dawn of common sense? Surely it ought to be manifesting itself in some small way?

 

As I type all this on my new NEO, at the Burger King play place (BTW, my lunch was 10x better than McD’s and the play place is the best I’ve ever seen), it occurs to me that my whole gripe here sounds petty and even humorous. Certainly every time I unload on Christian, he laughs instead of sympathizing. It makes me want to leave him at home for a week with the kids, juggling swim lessons and therapies and naps and lessons and then on top of that, the quirks of preschool-hood. And extended babyhood, for that matter. But that sounds like one of those anti-man, woman power kind of things to say, and that’s not who I am.

 

In the end, I figure that if Alex is asking me the same question over and over, it’s one of two things, and perhaps both: 1—I’m too wordy with my explanations; and 2—this is how he learns to process not only the world, but words and syntax and tone of voice.

 

Or maybe, after all, he’s just pushing my buttons.