• We have a three-year old kindergartener in the house!
Image: PIXABAY
I can’t believe we are almost past the toddler era. I say that because three year olds are considered toddlers for some months after their third birthdays. Once they start going to kindergarten, they are officially kindergarteners or pre-schoolers, as Americans call them. Then you have your exciting childhood years to look for, the pre-teen anxiety eras and finally the rebellious teenage years.
I have to admit as a first-time parent, seeing your kid climbing the growth ladder and hitting these milestones is something you are never fully prepared for. All you see when you look at them is the little baby the doctor placed in your arms the first time you gave birth.
My child turned three today. Last night as I put him to bed, my mind flashed to the three years prior, when I was being prepped for emergency C-section in the middle of the night. Every sense in my body could still recall the events of that night.
The stillness of the OR, the doctors sharing their distaste for mchango as they cut me open, the extended long few seconds that my son did not breathe after being born, and the chill that shook me to my core during the sewing period.
Yet here we are three years later with a healthy, temperamental tot who is in a hurry to grow up. He only eats meat yet he can name every vegetable under the sun. He’s cramming one language yet he’s spoken to in another. He makes me want to cry several times in the day, yet he cures my soul when he snuggles up to me and whispers, “I love you”.
As a millennial parent myself, I believe that other millennial parents are overdoing it with this new age parenting. You'll see them buy their kids the latest devices, put in their credit card numbers so that kids can buy game add-ons, let their kids go to school in crop tops, and allow their children to speak to them disrespectfully because they are “expressing themselves”. That type of parenting skipped a generation with me because I was raised in the old school. However, what I would agree on with other millennial parents is going all out on birthdays.
I spent most of last night decorating the living room and setting up gifts so that my three-year-old could wake up to a wonderful birthday surprise. Some might argue that my going ‘all out’ is nothing compared to some of the extravagant parties thrown by other mums. In my books, anything out of the ordinary that puts a smile on my child's face is extravagant enough.
The birthday was filled with surprises, tantrums and even bigger tantrums, but by the end of the day, my baby had started settling into his new era of being a big boy.