The Terrible Threes

I recently took a little part-time job at a day care facility to supplement my income during the slow-down time for my garden design business.

I had no qualms about this job. Just a few afternoons a week watching kids while their moms work out at a fitness center. Beautiful building. Clean. Lots and lots of great toys to keep the kids busy.
Piece of cake.

That's what I thought the first day, until two three-year-old girls walked in the door.

There are just two words for three-year-olds:

High Maintenance.

One little girl was obsessed with snack time, which we were not having during her stay there. The big kids on the other side of the wall were having snack, though, and that did not go over big.

"Do you think we will be having snack?" she asked.

"Not today," I said.

She begins to color.

"I'm feeling a little bit hungry," she says.

"Your mom will be back in just a little bit and then I bet she will get you a snack," I say.

"Sometimes for snack I have graham crackers," she says.

We set up the Candyland Game.

"Do you have any candy in your purse? she asks.

NOOOO! (Just kidding. I didn't really say that.)

The other little girl was the intellectual type.

"What's this? she says, pointing to a mystery piece of artificial fruit.

'A beet?" I guess.

"No. That is an eggplant," she states, giving me the "you are a dummy" stare.

We dump out a puzzle with pictures of animals to teach the alphabet. She discovers a hangnail on one of her fingers and becomes very bothered.

"Let me see," I say.

"DON'T PULL IT!!!!" she screams at the top of her lungs.

I check my watch. A half hour has gone by. A screaming baby comes through the door.
"I'll take him," I say, a little too enthusiastically. I mean, he can't be more work than those three-year-olds.