10 Reasons Three-Year-Olds Are The Worst

Affectionately called, "Threenagers" by many parents, three-year-olds can be the absolute worst. If you have a three-year-old, I guarantee you that you're reading this already thinking, "Yep, they are." When you think about it, three-year-olds are basically little wild people with no self-control living on impulse from moment to moment until they crash and burn. You also know, though, that if you're a parent of a threenager, they can be the absolute best too. For the sake of this list, let's focus on those reasons that three-year-olds are just the pits.

1) They're messy.
Not only are three-year-olds messy, they are destructive. Imagine if someone came into your house and robbed it, and then after they robbed it, they just trashed it like 80's rockers in a cheap hotel room. That's your new living space with a three-year-old.

2) They hardly eat.
Depending on what you feed them, they barely eat. Slaving away over a nice, hot meal for a three-year-old is a complete waste of time. If it isn't a happy meal, banana, or goldfish, they're not eating it.

3) They cry about everything.
Every single time my three-year-old falls down, regardless of if he is injured or not, he screams and cries until someone tells him he's fine. At which time he gets up, immediately stops crying, and continues to play.

4) They cry about nothing.
More aggravating than crying about everything is when a three-year-old cries about nothing. At least once a day my kid cries about something completely irrelevant. Today he cried because I picked him up early from pre-school and he wailed that he wanted to take his nap at school instead of at home. Last night, he cried because my husband gave him a taco shell to eat since we were eating tacos and he didn't want the shell.

5) Their favorite words are "No" and "Mine."
My three-year-olds newfound sassiness aggravates my husband to no end. Luckily for me, I'm sassy too. Thus, the sassy "Everything is mine and I'm going to shout 'NO' at you 37 times a day" thing doesn't bother me. However, I still find that it grates on my nerves after a long day.

6) They bring home every illness known to mankind.
Our family has never experienced more illness than when our three-year-olds went to pre-school. When my oldest went to pre-school, he missed school at a minimum of once every two weeks from October to March because their little immune systems are still developing. Also, three-year-olds are disgusting.

7) Potty training is your new personal hell.
Welcome to potty training, where pee ends up on the floor and pants don't matter. Hell really isn't an accurate enough word to describe this time in a parents life. Just yesterday my child decided to try and 'wipe' himself and he ended up in the bathtub because he just smeared it around his bottom and onto his hands. My oldest child, years ago, thought it would be amusing to make pee water toilet paper balls to throw at the wall during his time potty training. H-E-L-L I tell you!

8) They repeat everything you say.
Three-year-olds will repeat everything you say. Not only will it get annoying, it'll eventually get you into trouble because the ONE time you say something emphatically that you shouldn't the kid will undoubtedly repeat it at the worst time. For example, when I was three, I shouted the 'F' word during church prayer. My grandmother then immediately smacked my father because I'd heard him say it the week before. Good times.

9) They fight with everyone over everything.
Children argue, bicker, and fight. It's natural. However, three-year-olds fight constantly. Just last week both of my kids got a treat at the end of the week for showing exemplary behavior at school and each got to choose their own toy. Within 5 minutes of opening each toy, my three-year-old was already wrestling my older son because he wanted both toys. His reasoning for fighting was, "It's mine." A classic pre-k response.

10) Their artistic creativity spills out onto the walls, floors, and every place they can reach.
When a child is young, the last thing we want as a parent is to kill their dreams or stifle their creative abilities. However, sometimes, it's best to at the very least contain it. With my first child, I was very encouraging of the artistic process and when my child colored on the wall for the first time, I asked him not to do it again and he still did, of course. So I got the brilliant idea of letting him color on the vinyl kitchen floor because the crayon wiped off. It's still one of my big 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' parenting moments. Though I did test a few crayons, I did not test EVERY crayon. Let's just say, never allow your child to color with the hot pink Crayola crayon (even if it's washable) on anything other than paper. After 45 different chemicals/cleaning agents/etc we were finally forced to just give up and replace the flooring.

Though we all know that threenagers can be difficult, they can also be the sweetest, most loving creatures on the planet. My threenager is the first one to kiss me, hug me, and tell me he loves me. He still lays in my lap and asks for me to hold him and snuggle him before bed. Three is a tough age, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!