The Terrible Threes?

After the past week, I was convinced that the Terrible Threes had entered the scene a couple of months early.  I prepared myself for the worst, remembering my friend Vanessa's experience that age three was harder than two with her sweet boy Miguel.  Here we are, I thought, brace yourself.  Sam was ultra whiny, cranky, and generally not such great company to be around at all.  

I wanted to blame it all on him being sick, but he wasn't.  He had recently gotten over two bad colds back-to-back and seemed fine, just whiny.  Oh, the whining!  It could be used as an interrogation tactic at Guantanamo with amazing results, I swear.  Anything, absolutely anything, to make the whining stop.  Name your price!  (No, I am not talking about Hillary!)

Last week he had a hard time at school, too -- whining, crying for no apparent reason, humming, and generally out of sorts.  Even his ever-placid teacher Miss Julie was perplexed by his unusual behavior and almost called me to take him home early, something she has never done before.  When I asked Sam later why he was sad at school, he said, "It was too loud!"  Hmmmn...  What was that all about?  Wasn't it as loud as it was every other time he went there?  How odd.  I admit it -- I went home and then proceeded to really freak myself out by googling "symptoms of autism."  That list pretty much describes every two-year-old I know, but still.  What if...

On Saturday the three of us went on a long-anticipated train ride out in Dillwyn, part of Buckingham County.  I had taken Sam for a ride on the Santa Train there last December, and he was dying to go back, even if Santa wasn't on board for this run.  (That's true devotion to his train fetish!)  It's such a wholesome experience -- a quaint old-fashioned diesel called "The Rambler," kid-friendly conductors, and as uncommercial as a country train ride can get.  We loved it, Sam loved it, but he was just a little bit.... off.  What was the deal?  Was our little bundle o' joy turning into a big ole brat?  Were we about to lose what sanity we have left by trying to live through the Terrible Threes?

On the ride home down Route 60, Sam announced, "I want to turn my ear off!"  What?  Turn his ear off?  When we asked him if his ear hurt, sometime he'd say yes and sometimes he'd say no.  To be on the safe side, I took him to the pediatrician this morning.  Dr. Rowe (or "Dr. Whoa" as he is affectionately known in our house, along with rock star status) took one peek at Sam's right inner ear and announced, "He's got a doozy of an earache in there."  I just wanted to crawl under the table and ..... whine.  With as much restraint as I could muster, I resisted.  With the prescription burning a hole in my hand, we set off to Ukrops where Sam acted like ---an almost three-year-old boy with a doozy of an earache.  

So it wasn't the Terrible Threes after all, at least so far.  Instead the culprit was me, the Terrible Mommy.  Let's hope I outgrow this stage soon.  I think I need to return my Mothers' Day gifts as well.  I'm sorry, Sam!  I hope your ear turns off likety split!  In the meantime will some cookies 'n cream ice cream help it feel better?  And in my effort to be a better mommy, I'll have some with you, just to keep you company.

LibbY