My Three Year Old Overlord
Picture this: my son is playing with a game called Upwords. It’s a bit like Scrabble but you can stack the tiles on top of each other. He’s an average three year old, in the sense that he is terrible at spelling, so he’s not sitting there spelling ‘onomatopoeia’ or even ‘dog’. The longest word he has made so far is ‘gjtthkflpo.’ And frankly, I’m not sure that’s even a word.
The game he is playing involves methodically covering every single space on the board with a tile, sweeping them all off, and starting again.
‘Mummy, can you help me?’
‘Sure thing, sweetheart.’ I have finished my morning coffee so my son knows it is acceptable to ask me for anything other than food or other things that are necessary for survival. (I sound heartless but he wakes me at 5.30am and that is the compromise we have reached.)
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Help me put them on the board.’
‘Okay.’
I place a tile on the board. He looks at me with the same level of disgust as if I had just done a poo on the floor.
‘WHY DID YOU PUT THAT THERE?’
‘Because that’s what I thought -’
‘NO.’ He plucks off my tile and plops it into my hand. ‘Put it there, look. THERE.’
He points to a specific space on the board. I put it down.
‘… okay?’
He nods. ‘Yes. Now I put this one here.’
He places a tile next to mine. I start to worry. I know what’s coming next.
‘Mummy’s turn.’
Oh no.
‘Okay.’ I draw a tile and place it, carefully, next to his. ‘That okay?’
‘Yes, that’s okay!’ He gives me a warm smile.
‘To be clear, we’re putting tiles all over the board, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, all … everywhere.’
I place a new tile underneath the first one I put down.
‘NO MUMMY! DON’T PUT IT THERE!’
It turns out, somewhere in the three seconds between him agreeing to the plan and me picking up the tile, a small cog in his brain has kicked in somewhere and now he has changed his mind.
‘Do you want to rethink speaking to Mummy like that?’
He pauses and takes a few deep breaths through his tiny nostrils.
‘We are making a LETTER NOW. Like an ‘L’. OKAY?’
I can’t help but smile at his attempt to control the rage bubbling up inside him. It’s like putting a Tupperware lid on top of a volcano. ‘Alright.’ I help him make an ‘L’ shape on the board. He is very proud of our achievement and admires it for a second before dumping the board upside down and starting again.
‘Okay, do you want to make the letter ‘L’ again?’
He is looking at me and I can almost hear him thinking: that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard anyone say in the 1,217 days that have comprised my life so far.
‘NO. I want to cover the board now. With tiles. NO DON’T START THERE!’
At which point I have an adult-sized tantrum and give up.
When I worked in a nursery with two-year-olds, I would explain my job and people would cluck sympathetically. ‘Oof. Terrible twos, eh?’ and my response would always be, ‘I’d rather deal with that than threenagers.’
The thing is, they are hilarious. They start to develop a real sense of wit (even if most of their jokes are poo jokes, but frankly, poo jokes are fun no matter how old you are). They like to make people smile. They are observing the world like tiny scientists, trying to make sense of how it all works, and then articulate their findings in a way that is so adorable it makes me want to cry.
And yet!
They are so controlling.
Every three year old I’ve met is the same. They have an idea in their head that develops as they go, unfolding with each step they take, and they want you to come along for the ride. Playing is fun! But heaven forbid you should put that toy in the wrong place. Then you are in for a world of scorn.
To them, the world is large, contradictory, and often confusing. And so they try to control what happens in their own little bubble as much as possible. It’s not their fault if some hapless adult comes along and screws up the game.
This is the dynamic I had with my daughter when she was that age, and now with my son. We are close — as close as it is possible for two humans to be, I think. I grew them in my belly and held them in my arms and have kissed them goodnight and brushed their teeth and hair and made them food and cuddled them and loved them every day since. It makes sense, in a way, that my son thinks that I should read his thoughts. He probably thinks that we share the same brain.
Just now, my son called me from the bottom of the stairs. ‘MUMMY! I got a surprise for you!’
It is a pom pom squashed between two letter tiles. ‘It is a squishing game. See? You squish it and then POP! Out comes the pom corn.’
He considers his word mistake and grins. ‘It is a pom pom but it is a pretend pop corn.’
‘I see.’
‘Okay. I love you!’
And off he goes.
I can’t really be cross with him, can I?
