Lamenting the Third Child

Maybe the older two were hard at this age as I well.  I honestly can't remember.  Beautiful amnesia, I suppose.

Maybe their favorite response was NO as well and their sense of entitlement was off-the-charts.

Maybe I've grown older, grumpier, easily agitated and less able to turn my frown upside down. 

As of late, I keep saying that life will get easier when Claire turns five...except, I think I've been saying that since she was two.

My youngest and third child, 'Claire Bear' is four going on 44...a ball of piss and vinegar wrapped in a petite blond haired, blue-eyed body that when pushed to the brink (which is frequent), will make you wish you'd stayed under the covers.

She is sharp with her tongue, quick with a stink-eye and delivers a precise and excruciating kick to the shin that would send any grown man or woman to their knees.

And Holy Hell is she persistent.  When she's decided that she wants what she wants, you'd be better off sticking a fire poker into your left eye than to try and negotiate.  And I should know, my graduate degree is in Conflict Resolution and this girl can 'out whine' you on any day of the week.

To put it bluntly, she fucking wears you down.  I mean that in the most loving way possible.  By 8pm, I am knee-deep into the pinot noir searching for anything on Netflix to take the pain away. 

And while I feel guilty that she is our last and that my days are numbered until she starts Kindergarten and is in school full-time, I just need a break...or for her personality to shift.  Instead of the head-strong, domineering, passionate force to be reckoned with, I'm in need of a demure, passive, gentle, sweet child to call my own...not the spawn of...

I'm sure I'm writing this in a moment of weakness when my period is one its' way; I've inhaled far too much Halloween candy and she just pushed my buttons far too many times in an 8-hour window of time.

But God damn it, what is it about the third child? 

I stand in admiration of people who go on to have fourth, fifth, and so on children.  This means that you have definitively garnered your place in Heaven among the saints.