How I hate to see two turn to three

How I hate to see 2 turn to 3

How does an idea become a cultural icon? A concept so sure, that you just wait for it to happen. Years ago we took our first baby into our pediatrician and my wife announced that he had a runny nose because he was teething. Our pediatrician chuckled with condescension and informed us that babies are always teething. When the nose runs, and you check for teeth, you’ll always find one coming through. If you check when the nose isn’t running, you’ll find one coming through as well.

Leaving his office as better informed parents, and with four more kiddos worth of experience to teach me better, it is still nearly impossible for me not to check for a new tooth every time the nose runs.

I heard a new mother complain about the terrible twos the other day. I’ve been on a one-man campaign for a while now to improve the image of those besmirched 365 days of growth. It’s a year that is so bad that it is referred to in plural form. Is this really fair? Is two worse than one or three? The teenage years spread the derision over 7 birthdays – and even more if you count the preteens and tween years. Two has gotten a bum rap.

I’m no stranger to the one-man public education campaign. I once decided it was my job to inform every person who called 9-1-1 inappropriately that they would need to call a business line. A gentleman who downplayed the reason for his call before informing me of exactly what that reason was, was informed that he needed to call back. When he did, and talked to me again, he promptly informed me that his wife was having a heart attack.

That pretty much took the wind out of my campaign.

Past setbacks aside, I’m sure I have a winnable issue this time.

I have four children who have successfully lived through their third year of life on this planet. I still have one to go, but the odds of him making it are pretty good. My first boy was the first grandson on both sides. We just liked to sit around and watch him do stuff. Every morning he would wake up, run to the bathroom, push all the shampoo and conditioner bottles into the tub, run to the videocassette cabinet, pull all the cassettes out onto the floor, and then go dig in the garbage. It was like clockwork. The glee and zeal with which he performed this duty were contagious. Could we have stopped him from doing it? Of course we could. Did we publicly complain to friends and relatives how hard it was to clean up those messes over and over? Of course we did. Did we absolutely love watching him go through his routine? Of course we did.

I think back to all the funny mispronunciations that my children have used. Anna calling her uncle Dadid, Steven saying Buh-Steven instead of Buh-Anna when he thought it unfair that Anna had a fruit named after her, Rebecca calling herself Bebba for a long time, Rebecca referring to Cathy McComber as “Caffeine,” Ellie refusing to use the possessive pronoun: you car, you hat, you shoes, and a million other ones. These verbal treasures disappear so quickly – teenagers who mispronounce words aren’t cute at all.

One day Mary called kids in for lunch from the backyard of our home in Ogden. Rebecca had been in the tented platform of our swing set and was obviously very hungry. She looked at the two options available: the ladder and the slide, and decided that neither was fast enough. Her two-year-old little body leapt from the platform which was at least 5 ½ feet tall. As she hit the ground, her body crumpled. Then as if made of rubber, she popped back up and finished the journey in for lunch with nary a word of complaint.

In that same year, sweet little Rebecca just couldn’t make it until 7:00 A.M.for breakfast. She would wake every morning between 4:30 A.M. and 5:00 A.M. and quietly come into our room.
“Momma,” she would say quietly, “I so hungry.” Her pleading tone would break your heart, and Mary would get up and make her first breakfast. Satisfied after a bowl of oatmeal, she would return to bed until the rest of the family woke up. I don’t think she went back to sleep very often, but waited for the fun to begin and also second breakfast.

These are some of my treasures of the two-year-old. It is the greatest transfiguration children go through, for in that year you begin with a baby and end with a child.