THE THREENAGER - A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

Terrible twos, threenagers, fearsome fours. I thought it was all a load of rubbish if I'm honest. I was in charge in this household and no mini-me would run me down. Ha, fucking ha. We seemed to breeze through Noah being a two year old, he's always been a bit wiser than his years and with his speech second to none, we communicated well and escaped relatively tantrum free. I was smug, too smug perhaps and karma decided to pay me a visit in the form of a threenager.

Thankfully, we're on the home stretch to turning four and I'm pretty pleased about it as these last couple of months have definitely been testing. When your child first learns the word no it's amusing, but when they start to actually enforce the no, it's not quite so much. I'd be doing Noah a disservice if I pretended he was hellish because in all honesty, that's his brother, not him. He's well behaved and pretty reliable for said good behaviour, you know the type of kid you could take anywhere. But he has these moments, and my word are they moments - when the threenager inside is released in full force. For example just last week I found myself having to bribe Noah with a greggs fun bun - you know the ones with double his daily sugar allowance in a single bite and those god awful plastic rings on the top, yeah those. I used one to make sure he walked nicely around town, now I know he knows how to walk just fine but he's suddenly decided if he's feeling a bit like releasing the beast then dragging my arm downwards is the annoyance method of choice combined with point blank refusing to move with a loud 'Nooooo Mummy!!!!' if he spots something he wants. And as he's three, there are lots of things he wants. Of course I relish in the stares I get from passers by, sometimes with pity, often with judgement 'Ah, she's got a naughty boy'. No, it's just a simple case of a threenager.

Then come what me and John like to call the 'lairy moments' it's when we feel he's on his transition mode from Noah to the threenager. He starts to talk in this really low and loud voice, if he's talking directly to you he likes to make sure he gets really close to your face, nose to nose is definitely necessary and on occasions he'll even speak absolute gibberish  the threenager language that can only be deciphered by other threenager beasts. This mode is usually accompanied with some form of toy banging, either two together, or off a wall, table or any other loud surface. I guess we can look upon these moments as our warning klaxons and at least be grateful we get that little notification that 'he's that way out today'. In truth though, I think we've gotten off super lucky with Noah I know toddler tantrums can be brutal and I don't know if I can say Noahs ever had an actual tantrum, sure he's been a bit pissed off about things and wanted his own way like most children do but we've yet to deal with a throwing-yourself-on-the-floor-and-screaming situation though I'm quietly confident his brother will help fill the void on everything we're missing out on. In fact, I'm sure Patricks current tantrums could rival most three year olds because let me tell you when that boy wants his own way, he wants his own god damn way. So as we're on our way to waving goodbye to a three year old and welcoming the big number four, do I believe in the legend of the 'threenager' abso-bloody-lutely.