What is to have been was now what is (week 2 of life in a pandemic for a 3-year old).
The snippets of joy that skitter through shadows and sunlight.
There may be families that are getting through this pandemic without occasionally - or frequently - wondering around in some combination of diaper, underwear, and/or shirtlessness. Those families may exist, and I pity them.
A three-year old shoulders his backpack as he pauses to catch his breath amidst a hike during the pandemic.
A pandemic at 3 years old.
On the occasions when we watch a film while eating, he will get set up in his little mobile chair, with a tray, and his food spread out in front, and he will not eat until everyone - everyone - is ready. Until all are present, all have food, we have said grace, and the film has started. Then, he will pick up his utensils and began carefully eating, absorbing every morsel of food and every frame of film. There is that famous study about kids being offered one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows if they wait. I have little doubt what category he would be in. I love that. Delayed gratification, my parents used to drill into us. The idea of exercising your ability to enjoy something until the time is right. It is a skill that is not always enjoyable to learn or put into practice. Even as an adult.
Yoga. Rarely have I seen a three-year old so enthralled with yoga as when he is doing so with his mom. His ability to follow along is…entertaining.
Like most three-year olds, there are few ways he would rather spend thirty minutes than…washing dishes. At the risk of sounding smug or unnecessarily proud, I have rarely seen a three-year old that can wash dishes at a sub-mediocre level of competence for that length of time and stay as focused as he does. It is as if the world’s focus and joy is crammed into one squishy body, and that squishy body is on tiptoes, on a step stool, for thirty minutes at a time…washing dishes. It is a site to make you smile and sigh, and smile.
There is no learning that takes place that he is not interested in being a part of. Formal or otherwise. He will remind us of schoolwork or homework (they are the same) that he has yet to do. I possess a certain degree of pride that he has adopted my love of the full name mathematics, rather than the abbreviated math. There are various (free) educational resources online with little numbers, pattern recognition, basic adding games, etc. that we’ll have him do - and on the computer. Why not an iPad? Well…there is something I like about kids learning to use a mouse and keyboard. Questions about other topics such as Latin, Greek, poetry, and cursive are for another day, but you might be able to guess my feelings on those as well - and whether I think they’re still important to study.
There is a societal backlash against multitasking that appears somewhat motivated by legitimate longitudinal research studies. Nevertheless, I question whether these studies included subjects who were brushing their teeth while simultaneously sitting on a training toilet in the living room and drawing pictures of monsters while also watching Sesame Street. Were these subjects included, and if so, were they able to effectively maintain engagement across activities? I simply wonder that, having had certain experiences with individuals who might have qualified as subjects in these studies.
I peeked out the door to ensure his well-being was an appropriate level, and he was cooking. I sighed, put on my shoes, and headed out to see what he had on the broiler. Turns out it was a stew. A stew filled with many delicacies, including lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, noodles, and cake, but which you might have correctly identified as rocks, agates, weeds, grass, sticks, and bottle caps. He looked up with a chef’s grin as he stirred the pot, sitting in a patch of too-tall grass in our yard, and informed me over the course of thirty minutes, what he was doing. Eventually he relinquished enough control to let me join as a sous-chef, and we made a meal together. There was laughing, and a small wrestle, and eventually it was done and things devolved into a food fight. So, tragic ending and a waste of food. Apparently of time as well.
I like to give him a choice: You can either A) take a nap, or B) I can hold you, and we’ll practice counting to one hundred in German. He usually (100% of the time) opts for the latter, so we walk the hallway, his blond curls and warm breath splayed across my shoulder as he follows along: Einunddreizig, zweiunddreizig, dreiunddreizig…and so on. Sometimes we get to 90 or so (neunundneunzig) before he’s out. Then I lay him down, and miss his little personality so much that I want to wake him up all over again. But I don’t.
My wife’s husband let out a shriek as he headed down the hallway at midnight and saw a strange apparition lying at the hallway in the dark. It was a three-year old who had sneaked out of bed and probably intended to spy on his parents who may or may not have been watching television, and he must have fallen asleep. He looked familiar, and I secretly kissed his cheek before depositing him back to his proper bed.
There are some things that are true at three years old, and this is one: three-year olds need fresh air, and they need to be able to move.
