Three Is Not My Favorite Age

Michelle Hamel shares how she relies on her faith through the challenges of grandparenting 3-year-olds.

With all eight of my children, I always found their 3-year-old year to be the most challenging. The cute toddler often morphed into moments of being a tiny tyrant once they were three. There's a willfulness that emerges and 3-year-olds aren't as easily redirected. When they want something ... or don't want something ... you're going to know about it, and they don't give up as easily as they used to. There's lots of silliness that's harder to distract them from, and they easily pick up bad habits from other young kiddos that drive their parents (and grandparents!) crazy. 

In the Trenches 

Two of my sons and their wives are experiencing this phase of childhood. One son has a 3-year-old boy and the other has 3-year-old twin boys. Parenting one 3-year-old has many challenging moments. Two 3-year-olds at once is next level. When the twin 3-year-olds are having challenging moments, it feels like I'm a referee with a broken whistle at a WWE wrestling match! Sometimes it's only one of the twins that is testing and pushing limits but, quite often, the other starts to mimic the negative behavior and it's a two on one moment of extreme silliness where they've lost the ability to listen to Grammy's demands to cease and desist. 

Nothing Lasts Forever 

Despite how hard it can be to have two kids in the same difficult stage at once, I do have the experience to know that even the hardest stages don't last forever. I watch the twins and their almost 18-month-old brother three days a week. The twins turn four next month, and I'm praying that some of the challenges we've had in the last several months will be extinguished with the Paw Patrol candles they blow out at their birthday party.

My son has joked a few times with me lately, "Mom, think how easy it will be when the twins are in preschool next year and you only have one to watch." And while that certainly will be easier, I don't want to wish this moment away with the twins either. 

I know that there is joy to be had even in a difficult stage. And while it's easy to allow the negatives to build up and slip into a posture of white knuckling until things get easier, that kind of thinking keeps me from being present in the moment and robs me of any good happening in the right now. Early childhood is a really special time of development. Never again do you have the same amount of time with your children or grandchildren once they start school. Everything changes — and that’s exciting and sad all at the same time. 

Knowing that my time with the boys is dwindling gives me the encouragement to work through the moments when they push and challenge me so that we can get back to an atmosphere of, well, more normal chaos, so that I can love on them and enjoy them. I want to be able to stop and savor the moments with the 3-year-olds when Leo asks me to sit and snuggle with him, or Ambrose excitedly wants to show me the block tower that he’s built, or Xavier wants to tell me the “joke” he’s come up with all on his own. These moments are fleeting, and I don’t want to miss out on them, even on the days when it’s a see-saw of time-outs, redirection, and starting over dozens of times. 

Leaning In to God

Living through the “Trying Threes” definitely makes me lean in to God many times a day. Short prayers begging for patience slide through my lips just as frequently as “Do you have to go potty?” and “We need to keep our hands to ourselves!” There are days that the boys leave my house and I’m feeling grateful and have peace (and am also in desperate need of a nap!).

But on the harder days, I feel very inadequate and question if someone else could be doing a better job with them and that I’m failing at being a grammy. Those feelings aren’t all that different from the times that I have felt/still feel inadequate and that I’m failing as a mom. I don’t think that I expected that fear of failure and not being enough to travel with me to this next generation. Yet, here it is. 

Thankfully there’s something else that followed me into life with a new generation: faith. In a lot of ways, praise God, it’s much stronger than in my early years of motherhood. And while there’s still lots of room to grow, loving and living life with these little ones gives me lots of opportunities to turn to God, admit my poverty, and ask for HIs grace to pour into me so I can pour into all those He has entrusted to me.  

The Lord’s acts of mercies are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent: they are new every morning — great is your faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:22-23) 

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Copyright 2025 Michelle Hamel
Images: (center) copyright 2025 Michelle Hamel, all others Canva