My daughter, Lucie, can be the most adorable, loving, polite, and caring child I have ever met. Beware if you cross her, though — you will face the wrath of an age that strikes fear into moms everywhere: threenager-dom! What is a threenager, you ask? It means my daughter’s actual age is three, but she believes she is about to turn thirteen.
Here are some signs to be on the lookout for:
- Must change clothes constantly. There’s something wrong with the look of every outfit she tries on and she must get it perfect!
- Wants to wear makeup, and lots of it. If you say “no,” she will put it on when you’re not looking in hopes you won’t notice.
- Throws a tantrum when she doesn’t get her way — especially when the subject at hand is buying her new shoes.
- You have to leave 15 minutes early for everything so she can get into the car and buckle her car seat all by herself.
- She asks when she can learn to drive.
- She asks when she can have her own debit/credit card.
- She responds to your “I” statements with “I don’t care…” in a sing-song voice while rolling her eyes.
- She just changed her clothes again and the outfit she has only worn for 30 seconds is put in the dirty laundry pile.
- She only wants to eat things that come in individual serving packages, i.e. granola bars, yogurt, squeeze apple sauce, Pop Tarts.
- When you say “I love you” to her, she responds, “Of course you do, but I love you more!”
