I wrote this post a
couple of days ago but in typical me procrastination mode it’s only going up
today…
Toddlers bring happiness.
Yes they bring frustrations and exhaustion, but life with a toddler is a
life with daily joy. And I mean real
joy. Not just the faint little turning
up of the lips that represents a near smile I’m talking about the stuff laugh out
loud cackles are made from.
The laughter comes from the novelty and the innocence of the
moment. What is old hat to us is
completely new and exciting to the little people around us. Standing beside them as they get their tiny,
developing brains around a new concept brings pure joy.
I often find myself thinking back to when Mark was in Afghanistan and
I was able to keep writing the blog every day. Nowadays Alby is changing so
much I can’t keep up. I think were he to
go away again now my blog posts would be nothing but random lists of everything
Alby had done that day. And even then I
would have forgotten half of it. All to
often I sit down ready to write a new post and just don’t know where to
begin. New experiences come so quickly I
can rarely remember anything notable from the previous hour let along the
previous day. (With Operation Botbot
still a work in progress no doubt some of this is also due to my sleep deprived
brain getting overly fuddled, but let’s focus on the “Alby is just completely
impressive” line of thought).
All that said, last week had two incidences which I haven’t
been able to shake off and every time I think of them my eyes sparkle for my
family.
The first incident was early in the morning when I was
getting Alby dressed for the day. As I
took off his pyjama bottoms he looked himself up and down, pointed at his nappy
and informed me to “Leave it on mummy”.
Where he had formed this sentence from I have no idea as I can’t imagine
“leave it on” is an expression we say routinely. And yet, there he was almost naked but with a
clear sense of self and an edge of bossiness.
“Pardon Alby?” His expression
hardened, he pointed to his nappy once more and repeated slowly and clearly
twice over (repetition is everything they say) “Leave it on mummy”.
Truth be told I prefer to be the bossee rather than the
bossed, but on this occasion I was too busy laughing to care.
From a semantic experience to a one a bit truer to his
nature my next stand out moment took place later in the week when we took Percy
for a walk in the evening. The Tulip
trees nearby are embracing autumn like you wouldn’t believe and in the space of
two days had covered the pavement in their leaves. The expression might be “like a child in a
sweet shop” but I think “like a child amongst the leaves” would be more
apt. Alby was beside himself kicking the
leaves, jumping on them, shuffling through them. All of which was accompanied by laughter and
a running commentary on all he was doing. “Alby kick leaves.” “Alby running.” Seriously, nothing passes thi chap by.
This evening bought extra special brilliance when Alby and I
went for a evening walk to the shop.
Percy had spent a busy day running around the barracks with the soldiers
and was no mood for a walk choosing instead to stubbornly engage in a very deep
sleep. However, Alby was completely over
excited and we’d run out of washing up liquid so he and I got wrapped up in our
winter woolies and headed off to the local convenient store. It’s a stunning night here tonight and Alby
spent a lot of time wandering around with his head tilted back shouting
“Stars. Lots and lots of stars.” But then he saw his shadow and that was when
the fun really began. He squatted down
and pointed at it. Tried to out run
it. Tried to catch it. Tried to catch my
shadow. As we walked between the
different street lights his shadow would quickly turn from being in front of
him to being behind him and so every few steps we’d have to stop and find it
again, with Alby somehow always managed to turn the longest way round so that
when he did finally find it he had got all worked up with excitement, spotting
it and squealing “There it is” before running off again.
Laughter is medicine. Laughter builds relationships. With adult
partnerships we often hear how it is the trying times that build bonds but with
little people I think it’s the laughter which builds the family bonds more than
anything else. As I have done from when Mark first went away I continue to try
and ensure that every day I put aside the time to initiate giggle-filled
moments with my little Trouble Monkey’s laughter. Lucky for me, he seems just as committed to
doing the same with me!
No comments:
Post a Comment