I'm going to count to three...

The last few days have not contained many of Will's finest moments. The first thing he said to me the other morning, after letting himself into my bedroom, was "Mom! You're not my friend anymore!" Yesterday he asked me "Mom! Why do you have to be so mean? Why are you such a punk?" Yesterday, when I told him it was time to clean up toys and go inside, he told me, "Mom! That is a lie. That is not the truth. If you keep saying that, you are not going to be part of our family ANY MORE!" Add to these about a thousand repetitions a day of "Mom! You're not nice."

Yesterday he took his MP3 player out in the yard and was swinging it around by the headphones. I told him that he was going to break it if he did that. So, of course, he kept doing it. Then he would let go of the headphones and watch the whole thing fly across the yard or onto the sidewalk or wherever. I kept telling him to stop and kept telling him he was going to break it and we wouldn't be able to fix it. He kept ignoring me. Then he walked up to me and held out the headphones which had fallen apart down to the wires and were totally destroyed. He wanted me to fix it. I told him I couldn't fix it. And then he threw a 30 minute fit. He rolled around on our driveway, front lawn, and under the neighbor's tree screaming. I put him in the house and he let himself back out to continue the neighborhood scream-fest. Meanwhile, Sawyer kept picking up the broken headphones and trying to give them to Will. Sawyer also laid down on the ground next to Will and put his arm over him and put his head on Will's shoulder. In response Will would throw the headphones across the yard and push Sawyer over.

Earlier in the day I stuck both of the kids in the double stroller and tried to do some shopping. Walking into any kind of retail establishment is a cue for my children to start screaming. Will was screaming because he didn't want to be in the stroller and Sawyer was screaming because Will would not stop picking on him. I think I'm pretty immune to screaming at this point, but I was getting a lot of dirty looks from the all-female crowd of shoppers. I was doing my best to just get done and get out of there so I gathered up my stuff and went to pay. In response to the not-amused looks the two cashier women were giving me I said something like "Wow, those two are something else today." They replied by staring at me with their non-amused looks. Then I tried to write a check and realized my hand was shaking.

Will and Sawyer's birthdays are in July. I was thinking the other day that I can't believe Sawyer will be 2 already. And then I was thinking that Will has been 3 FOR-EV-ER. Seriously. How is that child still 3? 3 has been a loooooonnnggg year in the world of Will.

I clicked on a few links today and discovered that other people have noticed this phenomena as well. Like this lady, also mother of a how-long-until-you're-not-3-year-old.

All that stuff you've heard about the terrible 2s? It is a big cover-up. So that the terrifically terrifying 3s will totally blindside you. Because if you knew about the 3s, they'd never make it past the 2s. So if your 2 year-old is driving you up a wall today, just know that...it gets worse. Don't say you weren't warned.