A Conspiracy of Three

Help me; I think my kids may be conspiring against me.

Some nemesis gaining the ability to think is a facet of lots of recent movies of course.  I’m thinking of The Planet of the Apes series for one.  The Will Smith led I Am Legend is another.  And of course I’ve already compared my brood to zombies.

So maybe its just recent media that has me up at night worrying.  Then again…

You see, it seems to me that when urgency is most valuable, they are at their slowest.  When time is of the essence, they are black holes, sucking all the time away.

One day they will show me how they can put their shoes on – all by themselves.  Two days later when I have to have them out of the house – like that minute – they suddenly revert back to one year olds.  Shoes are roughly banged onto feet at angles that leave no hope of success; shoes that do make it onto feet are on the wrong foot, or worse, backwards.  How can someone who can barely manage to put on shoes manage to one on backwards?

But that is nothing compared to the planning, collaboration and coordinated attacks that occur when I’m at my most vulnerable.

I’ll tell you: My kids are awesome.  They are more awesome than yours, by a long shot.  They are awesome at speaking.  They are awesome at behaving.  They are awesome at listening.

Except that once I’m tired, they go into a three-pronged flanking attack.  Suddenly, they are rendered caveman like: unable to speak and left to communicate only through whines and grunts.  A kid who can, on a good day, choose from a menu of words to express themselves can suddenly solve the problem only with a full throated shout followed by a complete meltdown.  Accompanied with a side of biting or some hitting, perhaps.

Now, that might seem reasonable if they had their favorite toy take away or had been bitten.  I’m not a troll, I understand they are 3.  But when it arises in all three of them, and simply because one has more Gold Fish than the other, well, its hard to believe it’s a coincidence.  And not just "more" Gold Fish.  One.  More.  Gold Fish.  A kid that repetitively skips 5 when counting will suddenly know exactly what five Gold Fish looks like.  At a distance of 100 yards.  Through a bowl.

Kids that can open doors and take incredible tumbles with the ease of acrobats are suddenly flailing their heads about, nearly blinding me.

They've gotten so good at pulling their pants up and down that we stopped giving them rewards for doing it before going potty.  Like I said, my kids are awesome.  But then, suddenly, in a fit of disability, one will become incapable of using thumbs and instead uselessly slap at his pants with nub-hands.  I can only assume is some scientific process through which he hopes to discover some new Zen way of removing pants. 

There was movie recently about a sisterhood of traveling pants.  I don't think it involved new, Zen ways of nub-handing pants.  I didn't watch it.  But maybe all my concerns of a little zombie takeover is all a media creation.  Or maybe, just maybe, I’m in some weird game of three-year-old Catfish.