Who is this little person in front of me? Most of the time they’re an angel, but at other times they know just how to push my buttons. A parent of a 3-year old toddler has thought these things and others. As Toddler Mojo turns 3 here are some of the benchmarks that you have to look forward to or remember with a sly grin if your kiddos are older.
Potty training
He’s really good with #1, #2 is a challenge. A couple of times he’s been successful with #2 in the potty, but that’s been the exception rather than the rule. We started out bribing him with ‘Mickey Puter’* time when he sits down on the potty. After a while he got really quick at going #1, so now ‘Mickey Puter’ is what he gets when we know he has to go #2, in hopes of keeping him on the potty for a longer period of time.
We have a small portable potty and a toilet seat inset on the toilet upstairs. Toddler Mojo either potty for #1, but we’ve had more success catching #2 on the small portable potty. *’Mickey Puter’ is what he calls the iPad because it has a couple Mickey Mouse apps on it. He calls my Kindle Fire, ‘Daddy Mickey Puter’.
The language
It’s a relief to be able to communicate with your toddler. They can express opinions, tell you what they want to do and chatter endlessly.
Of course the downside to this is that sometimes they won’t make any sense. “My feet are cold”, he’ll say. ‘But, you’re in the bathtub, they can’t be cold’, I say trying to use logic with him. Their newfound logic means you’ll need to decode it from time to time and what they say is the exact opposite of what they mean.
The physical activity
Toddler Mojo has started kicking balls, running and climbing things. “I’m running”, he’s said on more than one occasion as he’s running through the house. Unfortunately, with the physical activity comes hitting and he hits sometimes, not to be bad, just because he’s flailing his arm. Well, sometimes he hits when he knows he shouldn’t, but that’s the job of a parent to tell them not to hit and correct them when they do it.
The food
His eating habits have gotten a bit picky. The cooking hasn’t changed, it’s the eating habits. We’re still lining up the food and he eats when he’s hungry because the kitchen is not making ravioli every night of the week.
The sleep
Some days Toddler Mojo will take a nap in the afternoon and other days he won’t. He always goes up for quiet time; the sleeping is optional, the quiet is mandatory. Quiet time lasts for an hour in the afternoon. Toddler Mojo wakes up around 6:30 and goes to sleep at 6:30.
The mood swings
Now I understand ‘woke up on the wrong side of the bed’. He’s always in a good mood in the morning but, sometimes when he wakes up from a nap he is moody and whiny about things that don’t matter. When he wakes up in one of those moods we take him out of the crib or put him in ‘time out’ and let him know that he can rejoin the civilized when he calms down.
The Life and Times…..is a semi regular feature on Daddy Mojo where we’ll run down what our kids are doing at certain ages. It gives parents who are coming up on this period an idea of what to expect. Likewise it gives parents who have been there a chance to share wisdom or tips on what’s around the bend.
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