Troublesome Threes

My grown-up guy
Photo by Kay Kauffman

When I was growing up, my aunt used to babysit.  She watched a little boy who had the same name as my cousin, right down to the middle name, so my cousin became Big D. and the boy my aunt watched became Little D.  That kid is now in his early twenties and, last I saw him, taller than me, but he’ll always be Little D. to me.

Anyway, my aunt watched this kid when he was a toddler, and I remember her talking about the terrible twos and the troublesome threes.  I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time and since I was a kid myself, I didn’t really care, either.  Now, though, I know exactly what she meant and boy, do I care!  As I recall, Tomcat’s twos weren’t overly terrible, though Cricket’s twos have thus far fit that bill, but boy, were his threes ever troublesome!  I suspect Cricket’s may be the same way, but I’m hoping they won’t.

When Tomcat was three, our lives were in a state of upheaval.

Holy shamoly!

I don’t know what I wrote, but evidently someone – or several someones – found something I said of interest because my blog traffic is through the roof today.  Normally I can expect to see twenty, maybe thirty people stop by on any given day.  On a really good day, the number of visitors jumps up to around fifty.  It’s a small following, I know, but I truly appreciate those who stop by regularly.  I think it’s better to have a handful of loyal fans than a thousand people who maybe stop in only once.

But today?  Today I’ve had 303 hits.  I don’t know what I wrote that was so dadgum interesting, but whatever it was, I wish someone would let me know so I could do it again!  Or at the very least, I could try to do it again.

And now, back to my writing cave!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Two-fer Tuesday

Today is the second, which is the perfect day to write about age two.  And, lucky you, I’ve got a couple of stories!

I am two years and five months older than my younger sister.  For most of our lives, we’ve fought like cats and dogs, although we do seem to get along better now that we don’t live under the same roof.  I’m glad, because we’re all each other has left of our immediate family (by which I do not mean the families we’ve created for ourselves with our husbands, both of whom we love very much).

I digress.  I do that a lot.  Anyway, rumor has it that once upon a time, like say, before she could walk and/or talk, my sister and I actually got along pretty well.  Turns out I was a helpful little stinker.  Too helpful, even.  See, we had this grate in our hallway floor upstairs for the furnace vent and apparently I liked to help change my sister’s diapers at the tender age of two and a half, whether she needed a diaper change or not.  Being a wee lass, I was not exactly up-to-speed on the proper diaper disposal techniques, so I lifted the grate and chucked them down the vent.

Cricket is now a very helpful, sometimes too helpful, toddler of two.  He enjoys helping me change Thumper’s diapers, though he and Thumper are closer in age than my sister and I.  Thank goodness, though, that Cricket hasn’t yet taken it into his head to change Thumper’s diapers by himself – I have a hard enough time convincing him to keep his own diaper on during naps and at night.  For some reason, he thinks he’s old enough to go commando.  A couple of times, it’s resulted in a very large, very smelly mess in their bedroom.  It even led to a failed attempt at potty training.  I swear my kids are plotting to drive me loony.  Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wait, I take that back.  I would change one thing.  I’d be a lotto winner – then I could afford the diapers.

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

October Blog Challenge

 

About a week ago or so, I ran across an interesting blog challenge.  Officially, it’s called the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge.  That’s a bit of a mouthful, so I shortened it up a bit for my post title.  Anyway, you can find out more about it here on Jane Ann McLachlan’s blog and sign up for it, should you so desire, here.  I thought it sounded like fun, so I signed right up.

On the off chance that you haven’t clicked through to find out what it’s all about, here’s the gist of it: Write 25 posts in 31 days.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Ah, but there’s a theme: Each post should be a memory or reflection for each of the first 25 years of life.  From the original post:

It can be a personal memoir from your life, a reflection on turning a certain age, a recollection of someone else at that age, a poem or a photo, on the ages 1 to 25.

For example…