If you know me, you know just how easy Violet has been. As an infant, she was easy. As a toddler, she was quiet. Then, she turned three. I thought we were in the clear - she turned three, and she was still the easy kid.
Then, she turned three and a half. The attitude was the first to come, followed closely by the screeching, and the mood swings, and the terrorizing of my waking moments.
She was no longer the easy one, the mellow one - she was the one who got into everything. Like four bottles of nail polish in a bathroom trying to use it to ‘glue’ her little people to the Little People castle. Like another bottle of nail polish while I was fixing dinner, when I had thought I had gotten it all, and suddenly got that glaring whiff of telltale nail polish scent.
I ran up the stairs, and there she was, painting her toenails.
Needless to say, we are now a nail polish free house (it was at the top of my closet!)
The next morning, when I was in the shower she snuck away with a tube of mascara while I was in there, drawing clouds on her mattress in her bedroom, black clouds, with the tube of mascara.
Not only did she ruin my favorite tube of mascara, but that mattress? Redecorated.
Those witty comebacks used to be cute when she was two, but now that she’s three and inherently should know a little better, we’re on three to four timeouts a day.
She turned into the loud kid. The screeching kid. The kid that ran around screaming, pulling at me, jumping off furniture (you know, the annoying kid) when there’s anyone in the house who isn’t immediately family.
What happened to the easy kid? What happened to the mellow kid? The kid that didn’t get into anything, the quiet one? She turned three. She turned into a threenager. The face-squishing “I just want to put you in my heart” kisses make up for it. Almost.