The terrible threes

My beautiful little man,
Every day I look at you and you seem so grown up already, no longer a toddler you are well and truly a little boy, you speak in sentences, most of the time getting across to us exactly what you are wanting to say or do, you are very affectionate and love cuddles and giving us kisses. You games have taken on a new angle too with you using your trains to tell stories rather then just lining them all up or pushing them around the track like you use too. You play with dinosaurs, your teddy bears and doll, the little people and anything else you can find. You are very creative and love drawing and painting as well as music of all sorts, often you will pick up a stick and pretend you are banging on a drum or blowing on a trumpet with it and you often use your imagination to play games with all your toys.

When  I look at you i'm not quite sure when you stopped being a toddler and became a little boy but I think it happened sometime around the birth of your little sister. You are so good with Abigail always wanting to kiss and cuddle her and always asking if she can play with you. I find myself feeling guilty quite often at the moment a lot of the day is taken up looking after Abigail and I don't get to play with you anywhere near as much as I would like too, I know this makes you sad, you often ask me to play with you or for cuddles and it breaks my heart when I have my hands full with Abigail and can not just drop everything to play with you like I use too. You have gotten a lot closer to Jeff recently as he plays with you a lot of the time that I am busy with Abigail, i love seeing you and Jeff together but that makes me sad too as I feel I should be the one doing those things with you.

Life isn't easy at the moment, you have hit the terrible threes and to be honest it is very much testing my patients. You throw tantrum after tantrum and your favourite words are I want and NOW! You whinge all the time when you don't get your own way and scream and yell at me over and over again about what ever it is you are wanting. Some days you have even gone so far as to hit and bite Jeff and I. It's not good little man and to be honest I really don't know how to deal with it. I don't believe in smacking but some days you make me so angry that I have just had to walk away before I snap. Time out doesn't work for you and I really don't know what to do anymore, all I know is I have to figure something out before your behaviour gets even more out of control and harder to fix.

I know this behaviour is normal for a three year old and I know some of it is coming from you adjusting to having to share me with Abigail as well as a result of how long you were away from me while I was in hospital when she was born. Going to your fathers every weekend doesn't help as it's just more time away when really you need to be at home close to me reaffirming that you are important to us and knowing that you are loved, being sent away every weekend is doing nothing to help you feel settled.

I love you little man and I promise that things will get better, as Abigail gets a little bit older it will be easier to play with you and she will even start playing with us. We will figure out how to make you feel safe and secure and when that is figured out I know the tantrums won't be as frequent.

Love always
mummu