I read a great article today titled "10 ways to enjoy your child today". There are thousands of articles out there, so many of them utter pants as they flip flop from tasks which require the supply cupboard (and staffing) of a large nursery to suggesting tasks so boring they make you question whether the author has actually ever met a toddler. This one however was good. The tasks were simple - trace around your hand, then trace around your child's hand inside yours and compare the sizes, tell each other 'I love you' in different animal languages, put on music and get your child to teach you some dance moves.
This list was realistic and achievable. The goal of every day. By the end I think she was searching a bit for ideas suggesting "turn off your phone for the day" - a brilliant suggestion and one Mark and I need to take up but not quite on a par with have a staring competition with them whilst you make funny faces.
I digress. The article echoed thoughts I've been having inceasingly the past few days. It is crazy easy to get caught up in "other than your child" activities when you have children. Whether it's some sort of selfishness from being at the beck and call of somebody else every minute of the day (and night) for four years or the temptations offered by having the internet and BBC Iplayer at your fingertips or tiredness preventing you from concentrating on any single task I don't know. Maybe a combination of all plus twenty other things as well.
I read an article (a different one) that said couples without children were happier than those with. My gut reaction was "what tripe". Followed quickly by the thought "if that's true there is something wrong with how we are parenting". There are many times over the past year when I've thought how much easier it is to take care of, and dare I say it, love a baby over a child. Their needs are different, they are simpler, they don't answer back, they don't make such specific demands of you nor do they reject your ideas. I'm not suggesting you love them any differently but you expect so little from a baby and every smile is a gift whereas with toddlers there is an element of teaching in every interaction making it more dynamic and more demanding.
And expectation is probably the key word. Once babies really getting talking we all too often expect so much from them and our determination to get them to succeed can come at the cost of easy giggles and fun times. To be happy parents, to be good parents, we have to put aside our to do lists, put down the phone and follow their lead, give them the prompts and the space to be themselves. For them to be our beautiful children and for us to be their happy parents. Days when we go to bed shattered and frustrated reflect on our misplaced expectations rather than anything our children said or did.
We didn't do anything from the list today. Instead we played shop with Alby running a greengrocers followed by a stationary store. Alby meticulously scanning, weighing and adding up with his new till whilst I did my best to stop George eating the plastic money. We built block towers for George to knock down. We drew pictures together, me making the faces of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Alby added the weapons. I followed his lead and as I reflect back on the day I get to do so from the smug position of knowing that today was a good day. I was a good mum. And the assertion that the claim that you are happier without kids is, for me, utter tripe.
This post was just meant to be a short intro followed by the little snippets below but I appear to have gone all philosophical on everyone. Oh well, here's a few sneak peeks from life with Alby today.
Playing games
Alby: let's play the word game mummy.
Me: Okay. I don't think I know the word game. How do we play?
Alby: Sonebody thinks of a word. And you have to guess.
Me: What? Any word?
Alby: I'll go first. Mummy, trees move even when you don't touch them.
Me: (tentatively) Yes. When the wind blows on them the branches wave.
Alby: Yes! That's it. Well done. That's one point to me and one point to you.
Manners
As Georgie destroys Alby's race/building/ninja fight "no thank you Georgie. No thank you. No thank you Georgie."
Vocabulary
Alby: Did you see that mummy? It was tanfastic.
Later that same day: George is so red-ick-lee-ous.
George clapping
I have a vivid memory of driving from Yorkshire to Surrey when Alby was about a year old. He was in his car seat in the passenger seat fast asleep and I was listening to a live CD of Knopfler. At the end of the song the audience started clapping and Alby just sat upright, starting clapping and then when straight back to sleep again. Tonight as I put George to bed he was sleeping in my arms, still latched from his feed, his clunky projector music going on in the background and he started clapping. Hands up by his forehead as there was nowhere else for them to go, eyes still closed, clapping away.
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