Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Three-Year-Old Lawyers

My hubby and I were talking about children the other day. (It's a popular topic for us, given the fact that we have three of them.)

We discussed how people warned us about two-year-olds and the "Terrible Twos," trembling like they'd survived a horrific zombie attack and lived to tell the tales.

We laughed the first time, when our oldest was about 14 months old. "Riiiight," we said to each other because we'd subscribed to the notion that the "twos" would be "terrific."

And they were.

Then came three.

It's not that our sweet, adorable, angel-faced daughter sudden turned demonic. Not in the slightest. She just learned to talk.

And with talking came curiosity.

And with curiosity came questioning.

And then...came...arguing.

Now, arguing, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Depending on how it's done, a person can learn a lot of good things, most importantly maturity and humility.

But when you're three and your language and thinking skills are still developing, those aren't the first things you're going to learn. In fact, you probably aren't going to learn much, except how to drive your parents batty, which, for the record, will come in really handy when they're future lawyers.

Now, 13, 9, and 2 years later (respectively), our little lawyers are still going at it. They're very curious and love to question things. And they still love to argue. (No one plans a career in law.)

But we, their parents, have learned a few things along the way.

Sometimes, when the arguing starts to get to us, we just smile.

One day, they'll have their own three-year-old lawyers.

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How did you survive the toddler/preschool years with your little ones?

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