On a car ride home, my husband and I were discussing a skill our almost-2-year-old possesses that we think is particularly awesome.

“We make a good mix,” he said.

At that moment I stopped at a red light, and Emma, the almost-2-year-old, called out, “Mama” in a familiar tone. I knew exactly what I would see when I turned around.

Just as I suspected, she was showing me the inside of her mouth, where a chocolate chip cookie was in a state of being masticated.

“Ohhhh,” I said in a sing-songy voice, knowing a positive response would be the only thing that would end her little show.

But she wasn’t done.

“Dada!” she called out. The routine was repeated.

She learned this from her 5-year-old sister who is always showing us some “trick” — a spoon hanging out of her mouth in a funny-to-her way, a piece of cheese sticking out of her mouth acting as a tongue… you get the idea. We’re very patient with her shenanigans.

Emma’s next victim was her 5-year-old sister.

“Liddie!” she shouted. Lydia turned, saw her sister’s open mouth, and immediately said, “Ummm… I don’t know if you know this, but nobody wants to see that, Emma.”

We burst into laughter at her hypocritical chastisement.

In the next moment, I glanced at my husband who was about to absentmindedly put the metal tip of the phone charger onto his tongue.

“Ack! Don’t do that!” I shouted.

He laughed at himself and said, “I revise my earlier statement about us making a good mix. I think it’s just you.”

I pointed to the phone charger, then indicated the open mouth in the back seat that was responsible for our laughter and said, “Nope, you’re right. I think we make a good mix.”

Motherhood has not been my friend lately.  My oldest child — who I love with all my heart — has been pushing the limits and testing my patience with the dedication of an Olympian.  My 1-year-old is in the easy-peasy stage where she can do no wrong, so I am constantly feeling guilty for simultaneously smothering her with kisses while yelling at her older sister.

It’s tough.

But I was reading through my old, old, old posts and came across stories of my oldest child’s incredible sweetness and cuteness as a toddler.  Reading about her missteps in learning to speak, sing, roller skate, and play with toys reminded me that I need to stop fretting and enjoy.

And then I came across a post from May 13, 2010 that was indeed meant for me to read again right now at this very moment.  I’ll paste it here.

We ended our evening watching an incredibly sad news report about a 4-year-old boy who was abused and died at the hands of his mother and stepfather.  The details were awful.  We were in tears.

“Let’s go wake up Little Precious and give her a hug,” he said.

So we tip-toed into her room and scooped her from the crib where she was resting peacefully and safely — oh, so safely.

“Hi Sweetie,” we cooed to her.  The corners of her mouth turned upwards as she kept her eyes closed in her half awake state.  She rested her head on my shoulder and I swayed while I rubbed her back.  Then, I passed her off to Daddy, who she snuggled with comfortably, that cute half smile still resting on her lips.  We gathered together in a family hug, then reluctantly put her back in the crib, where she immediately snuggled up to her favorite stuffed animal.

As I write this, I sit and wait for her to wake up and greet the day with her usual songs and morning blabber.  I can’t wait to go in and scoop her up again, ask her what she dreamed about, read the scriptures with her, try to get her to sit still to say her morning prayer, ward off her first tantrum of the day with a hug and kiss, make breakfast, wipe up her inevitable spills, walk away from her for a minute to take a deep breath when her second major tantrum of the day starts, read her stories, take a walk with her, dry her tears when she cries because I tell her she can’t have any candy, try not to laugh when she tells me that Daddy lets her have candy, and cuddle, cuddle, cuddle.

Because she is mine — and she is precious.

{2-year-old Lydia.  Oh my goodness.}

I had front row seats to the most interesting show in town today: the conversations of two 4-year-olds.  If you haven’t listened to two 4-year-olds talk lately, you should give it a go.  It’s almost as good as watching a re-run of Arrested Development or Seinfeld as every quirky facet of each child’s personality is suddenly revealed in one big dump.  In under three minutes, each 4-year-old runs the gamut of dramatics: from bossy to loving to excited to know-it-all to sweet to whiny and back again — and only about 50 percent of it makes any sense at all!

Lydia told a “knock-knock” joke to her cousin Poki today.  She prefaced it with a lengthy explanation that this is a different kind of “knock-knock” joke, but that it is important to just do what you’re supposed to do when hearing a “knock-knock” joke.  Her gift for gab was revealed in her unnecessary explanation that took more time than the joke, and her cousin’s sweetness was revealed in her willingness to listen to the explanation — and then to continue to participate in the joke.

“Knock Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

This was repeated several times, until Lydia finally revealed the punchline — incorrectly.

“LEMON!”

Poki laughed her heart out at the fabulous joke delivered with such “perfect” comedic timing, and immediately began to tell her own joke.

She was rudely interrupted by my offspring. “NO!  That’s not the end of the joke!  You’re supposed to say, ‘Who’s there…’”

Both girls were distracted by something shiny, and the conversation immediately traveled in a completely different direction.

Later, I learned it is only important to get one child on board with an idea because the other child will undoubtedly follow the excited lead of the first child.  Once they had exhausted all toys and ideas for playing (about 10 minutes into their playdate), they wandered downstairs to whine with boredom and tattle on each other for various infractions.  I suggested they go play “store” with the toys they had scattered around the room.

Lydia jumped up and down and shouted, “YAY!  Let’s play Walmart!”

While I cringed, Poki followed suit. “Oh, I just LOVE Walmart!” she shouted with an amount of misdirected enthusiasm fit for 10 adult bodies.  They raced upstairs, sharing their exciting Walmart plans with each other.

Over lunch, we discussed favorite animals, colors, TV shows, movies and more.  Both girls decided their favorite holiday is “Thanks Patrick Day.”

On the way back to Poki’s house, they both yelped with glee when their favorite pop song came on the radio. “Turn it up!  Turn it up!”  they begged in sweet-voiced unison.  I obliged, and together we all shouted incorrect lyrics down the freeway.  When my eardrums were blasted, I turned down the radio and listened to the girls giggle and talk to each other in the backseat.  Every sentence started with, “I was like…”

These 4-year-olds are acting more and more like 14-year-olds.  I desperately want to freeze them as they are right now.

But they aren’t too keen on that idea.

Like most pre-school aged children, my daughter has an incredibly independent mind.  Sometimes her strong-as-iron opinions and desires aggravate me — like when she insists on drying her hands for five minutes when I need to get to an appointment.  Or when she throws a fit because the song on the radio isn’t being sung by a girl — the only acceptable gender to sing pop songs, according to my almost-four-year-old.

Sometimes her strong opinions make me laugh — like when I had her convinced all year that she would be a pirate for Halloween (oh, she would have been the cutest pirate!), and then in August she decided she is completely obsessed with ghosts.  How do you make a cute ghost costume?  I don’t know, but I did my best.

And sometimes her strong opinions completely baffle me — like when she decided her trick-or-treat bag was too heavy after one block, and she needed no more candy whatsoever.

Her sweet Aunt Cindy offered to carry the “heavy” bag from house to house, handing it off just in time for the treat retrieval, but that suggestion was politely denied.  ”No thanks,” Lydia said, and skipped ahead to hold her cousin Nicole’s hand.

We even removed some of the candy from the bag, and stuffed it behind her baby sister’s head in the baby carrier, but that didn’t make a sufficient enough difference in weight for my independent thinker.

However, she continued to trek from door to door with her cousins — sans candy bag — and holler “trick-or-treat” like a pro.  When offered candy, she refused, much to the confusion of the door greeters (and myself).  The first time it happened, I tried to explain my daughter’s odd behavior from the sidewalk.  Then I gave up that game, because… well… how can you even begin to explain a refusal of candy?

I suppose a simple sentence — “She’s a three year old” — would have sufficed.

I turn around from grabbing an ingredient out of the refrigerator and she is there, underfoot.

I stand up after cleaning out the counter under the bathroom sink, and my stiff-from-crouching knees nearly trip over her little body.

I swoosh around the kitchen in a flurry, trying to put groceries away while she keeps one hand on my pant leg.

I settle down to nurse the baby, and her wiggly body is nudging its way first onto my lap, then over my shoulders, then at my feet.

I hurry out the door, and accidentally bonk her in the head with the car seat because she is lingering too close by my side in too tight of a space.

I feel frustration.  I feel too needed.  I want space to myself.  I speak a little too harshly.

And then, when she is in bed and the house is quiet, I sneak into her room and crawl in her bed, where I hold her as close as possible.

And I vow to do better tomorrow.  For she is growing up faster than I can grasp — she is getting more independent by the day.  One day, she won’t want to play the role of my shadow.  And I will miss it.

I have a very good girl.  So good, in fact, that she tattles on herself when she is being naughty.

The other day when we were getting ready for nap time, she said to me, “Mama, I put a washcloth in my bed.”

“Oh?” I responded, wondering why she was telling me this uninteresting bit of information. Then I understood what was going on.  She loves to play with washcloths or any other type of soft thing and she can create an entire family and world with random objects.  While I love her creativity, it wreaks havoc on her afternoon mood because it keeps her awake during her much needed nap time.  We recently made a rule that she can take only ONE thing to bed and she fully understands that rule.

“Yeah, I put it in there but I hid it in the corner under some blankets so you won’t find it.”

Wouldn’t it be great if this inability to be secretly devious followed her into her teen years!?

I didn’t set out to be a liar when I became a mother.  It just happened out of necessity.

Anybody who has ever spent less than 5 minutes with any toddler or pre-schooler quickly learns a thing or two about this adorable, chubby population.

1. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are opinionated.
2. Toddlers and pre-schoolers have no idea what they are opinionated about.

Take, for example, my recent lunch time exchange with my little 3 year old.

“Should we get something to eat for lunch?” I asked.

“Yes, but I don’t want Taco Bell today,” she responded, tired of her mother’s recent (and many) pregnancy cravings.

“Ok, where should we go?”

“I don’t know!”

“Ok, we’ll go to Wendy’s and get a cheeseburger.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  I don’t WANT to go to Wendy’s,” she shouted with amazing force for someone who didn’t know where she wanted to eat only seconds earlier.

After some deliberation and questioning about her violent reaction to the fast food chain, it became clear to everyone in the car (myself and my child) that said child had no idea what the heck she wanted.

“Ok, well then how does Burger King sound?” I asked as I pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot.

“YES, YES, YES!!!!  I want to go to Burger King!  Maybe there will be a king there!” she shouted.

As she happily held my hand and skipped through the parking lot while begging for a milkshake, I didn’t dare tell her she was about to eat a Frosty.

Lie about a milkshake =   – 1 Mommy Point

Prevention of another tantrum=   + 10 Mommy Points

Right?

At around 5:15, it all came crashing down.

My daughter, that is.

She had found the one activity- standing on a chair and washing toys at the kitchen sink- that didn’t send her into extreme fits of whining and me into extreme fits of exasperation on this trial of all trials afternoon.

And then she fell.  *Crash Boom* and she was wedged on the floor between the counter and the chair, screaming at the top of her lungs.  I immediately forgot all my anger and frustration with her (loud wails of agony from your firstborn will do that to you) and left my piano student so I could rush in and scoop her up.

I cradled her on the couch while she rested her head on my shoulder, dousing it in snot, spit and tears.  Everything we had said to each other in annoyance and fury in the past couple hours floated through my head.  Had I really been that impatient today?  And had she really turned that purple when she screamed back at me with indignation each time I forbade yet another thing?  Yes, indeed I had and yes, indeed she had.

So there we were.  Crash and boom.  As she was crying for much longer than was necessary, I held her as close as possible.  The fall was scary and it hurt her a little bit too.  But as the minutes ticked by and the sobbing continued, I knew she didn’t really need comfort for the fall anymore.  She needed an understanding mommy more than anything.   She needed a mommy who wasn’t going to be angry and upset.  She needed a mommy who would take as much time as necessary to kiss her boo boos away, rather than shoo her away because of impatience and lack of time.

And I needed to hold her close and help heal her so that I too could be healed.  Her tears washed away the last two hours of rip-my-hair-out frustration and I turned back into the mommy I’m supposed to be.

It all ended with a crash and boom.  And it all started again with a wiped tear, a giggle and cuddles for the rest of the night.

In our church, my husband and I currently have the difficult responsibility of teaching the 3 year olds.  They are adorable and sweet but they are a handful.  We spend a lot of lesson time playing games, singing songs and doing wiggle activities.  We try to make these activities correspond with the lesson, but after a while, our only option is “Ring Around the Rosies,” and it’s quite difficult to tie that into learning about prayer.

Most often, our best efforts go entirely unnoticed by our tiny pupils whose attentions spans make goldfish look like Memory Olympians.

Yesterday, we were teaching the story of Daniel in the lion’s den.  You know, the story where Daniel prays to God, which is against the law at the time, gets thrown into a lion’s den and miraculously is not eaten when angels come and shut the lions’ mouths.  He and the king also pray for his safety.  That is supposed to be the point of the story.

To make the story more interesting and hopefully stick with the little dears, we showed a picture and then helped them act it out.

“Who wants to be Daniel?”

“ME,” said Child #1.

“OK.  Pretend like you’re praying.”

“I want to be a dinosaur.”

“Ok.  Daniel Dinosaur was praying and some bad people took him to jail for it.  Who wants to be the king?”

“ME,” said Child #2.

“Ok.  So pretend to be sad that Daniel…”

“I’m a dinosaur,” we were quickly reminded by Child #1.

“…that Daniel Dinosaur is getting in trouble.”

“I want to be a chicken,” stated Child #2.

“Ok.  The chicken king was sad and he prayed that Daniel…”

“I’m a dinosaur,” came the reminder from Child #1.

“…that Daniel Dinosaur would be safe in the lion’s den.  Who wants to be the lion?”

“ME,” said Child #3.

“Ok.  Roar like a lion.”

“Roar!” from Child #1.
“Roar!” from Child #2.
“Roar!” from Child #3.

“Ok.  So do you think that Daniel was scared?”

“I’m a dinosaur,” said Child #1.

“Do you think that Daniel Dinosaur was scared?”

“I want to be a frog,” said Child #3, our supposed lion, who then promptly began hopping around the room.

Child #1 began stomping and roaring like a dinosaur and Child #2 began flapping and clucking like a chicken.

So, to sum up: Daniel the Dinosaur was caught praying, was sentenced to a night in the lion’s den, much to the sadness of the Chicken King.  We’re not sure why the lions didn’t eat him because we never got that far in the story, but one of the lions did turn into a hopping frog.

And then they all played “Ring Around the Rosies.”

Our 3 year old has no concept of money, so naturally we think it’s the perfect time to start giving her an allowance.  Really, though, we would rather work with a blank slate so we can teach it right.  (Assuming we actually know how to teach it right.)

Our allowance for our pre-schooler plan is slightly ambitious.  There are a lot of categories involved and it may end up being too much, but we need to start somewhere!

She gets $1.00 a week, separated out into ten dimes.

1. We believe in paying a 10% tithing and that is a principle we want to teach to our children. Putting one dime in a jar is an easy way for her to start to understand 10%.  START to understand.  We don’t expect her to get this for a long time, but if the habit is always there, the understanding will come later.

2. One dime goes into savings for college.

3. One dime goes into lifetime savings- retirement. Seriously.  I know this is a huge concept to teach and it’s really early to think about this, but can you imagine if you had put 10% of your money away since you were 3 years old?  She really has no idea what she’s saving for, but again, the habit is being made.  It’s also insurance for us.  She’ll be loaded by the time she retires, so she can take care of us.

4. One dime goes into charity.  I got this idea from a magazine.  At the end of the year, she will choose a charity and we will match her donation.  We did this at Christmas time with a charity gift from my grandparents.  I showed her images of the people or animals that would be helped at 3 different charities and she was allowed to choose one.  She chose to give the money to the animal shelter, so we drove over there and she proudly handed her bill to the administrative people.  They made such a fuss over her that she was positively beaming when we left.  It was a great experience for her.

5. The rest goes into fun. So she puts 60 cents into her fun fund each week.  She is a peculiar girl and doesn’t ask for toys or candy.  We like this about her.  We don’t want to push her towards materialism, and so we explained to her that when she has enough money, she can choose to go out to ice cream or a movie with Daddy.  She is thrilled at that and can’t wait.  As she gets older and starts realizing that she actually wants things, we will explain that she will need to use her fun money to purchase many of those things on her own.  But we just don’t see the point in planting materialistic ideas in her head if they aren’t already there.

I do realize this is a lot to teach a 3 year old.  I really don’t expect her to grasp the whole picture, but I think it will slowly sink in as time goes on.  Eventually, we want to teach her how to invest her savings, how to work for money and other things.  We think that by starting with this basic concept of saving, we’ll open the doors for many teaching moments and it will even force us to become better stewards of our own money.

How do you do allowance with your kids?  What works and what doesn’t work for you?