Friday 10 January 2014

Toddler Stew

There's a lot of things they don't tell you in parenting books. They're usually packed full of sensible sounding advice, although it is worth checking if the author actually has children of their own. Trust me, the rules are very different between someone who regularly looks after children verses actual parenthood. Now, a lot of childcare experts can look at the situation less emotionally, more scientifically and often can recommend some sensible ideas, but at the end of the day it's you that's the parent and it's you that's feeling emotional. When the frustration is streaking out from you like static electricity and making you feel like your hairstyle has become less "yummy Mummy" and more "crazed dandelion" then all the "sensible" advice in the world is not going to help. Said book of sensible tips is likely to be lobbed across the room to the tune of an over-hormonal woman yelling "what do you know about it anyway????" followed by some untranslatable utterances that can only be put down to hormones.
Seriously, I've come close. Just how do small children work out exactly which day it is that you are at your lowest ebb and then push all your buttons, plus the ones on the remote and the washing machine as well.

And why is it now that he starts to decide he doesn't need his nap any more? I know at 3 he's old for still napping, but he's always seemed to need more sleep than the stated average. He could have picked before I fell pregnant, or later in the year when I hope to be feeling better. At least he was still napping when I was having all the nasty pregnancy sickness, but I'm not exactly well now. I might have the womb of a fertile young woman, but the rest of me feels like it belongs to an eighty year old. I can only hope that the octogenarian who seems to have done an internal body swap with me treats it well and gives it back after I give birth.
And why now does he decide to start having little accidents? It's like we're back at the beginning of potty training again, with damp pants, forgetting to ask and the most irritating of all - the soggy car seat. They might say they come with an easily detachable cover, but they don't, they really don't. Now we have a car that smells of cat pee remover. It does the job all right, removes little boy odours just as well as cats, but it's what you might call pervasive. It doesn't smell of vanilla, it smells of something trying to pretend to be vanilla.

My pensionable hips have been keeping me up at night so I'm short on sleep and today was a little too much. He was ok at his first toddler group of the year, but was a little terror at singing time. He wet the car seat on the way and on the way home was sat on a carrier bag, complaining. He ate his lunch but didn't want to sleep. He wasn't crying, but I could hear him trying to bounce his toys off the wall the whole time. I took a much needed rest anyway and prepared for the afternoon which consisted of constant demands for drinks, TV programs and other incomprehensible items that pushed me to the limit.
I got out a pan and put it on the hob.
I picked up Joseph and asked "Shall we cook you? What would you taste like?" and then in the spirit of not really taking it seriously I turned him upside down and tried to put his head in the pan.
He didn't get the joke. He looked scared and cried out.
"No! Don't roast me, I'm not a cooky boy!"

It took a few minutes to convince him I was being silly. He ended up wearing the pan on his head for a little while and laughing, but kept looking at the cooker, as if somehow it might sneak up on him and cook him anyway.

Btw, he's ok now. He and Daddy are upstairs throwing lego about. Perhaps he'll learn that the cooker is not a toy now.

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