A real boy

I wrote this post a few weeks ago but for some reason never got around to posting it.  Almost pressed delete just now as it’s a bit out of date (Bubs has got a LOT more bossy since I wrote it) but then I thought it might be nice to read back in a few months or years.  So you lot may as well have a read too

I’m not quite sure how or when it happened, but my sweet little baby has vanished and in his place there is an altogether different animal; a toddler.  Of course, Bubs has been ‘toddling’ for a while but lately he seems to have grown up a lot, both physically and in terms of his personality.  He’s just beginning to lose some of his baby fat – he has a jawline now and even his cheeks look a bit less ‘chubby baby’ and a bit more ‘chiselled hellraiser’.

But the biggest change I’ve noticed has been in his temperament.  We, the parents, are not the only ones giving orders around here, oh no.  Nor are we the only ones who know what we want and when we want it.  In fact, Bubs is using his increasingly impressive grasp of the English language to let us know exactly how he thinks things should be run in this house.

We bring him into our bed first thing in the morning and his first demand is usually ‘Phone.’  Daddy’s bog standard mobile won’t suffice either, he means ‘iPhone’ and he wants to watch Postman Pat on YouTube.  RIGHT NOW.

Then he says: “Go downstais, feeda dogs.”  So we have to go downstairs and feed the dogs or else all hell will break loose.  And so this is how our days are shaped – Bubs making demands and me trying to decide which ones I should give in to, in the interests of not ALWAYS saying no and yet not being a complete pushover.  I must admit I do err on the side of pushover, especially in public places like Asda where, faced with my offspring kicking and screaming on the floor, my face turns red and my insides to jelly.  I’ve found that getting him to ‘help mummy’ with tasks like laundry, cleaning and shopping helps keep him distracted and gives him a sense of achievement that is ridiculously cute when I have time to give him a round of applause, but distinctly less so when I’m trying to stick on a quick load of washing before I inhale my cereal and gallop out the door, and he is tugging at my jeans while screeching ‘Afee do it!’.  We’ve all been there I’m sure – walking that delicate line where you want to encourage their independence but it takes all your strength not to scream ‘JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY!’.

What really amazes me is what he is capable of and how much knowledge he absorbs just from watching us – just this morning I caught him applying my mascara delicately to his eyelids (and his cheeks, and his hands, and the white duvet cover) and we routinely wet ourselves laughing as he ‘talks’ on the phone, pacing back and forth just like his Daddy and starting every garbled sentence with “Naw, but…”  It’s like holding a mirror up to yourself – all our little habits and idiosyncracies are reflected in his behaviour which is both funny and horrifying at the same time.  And I also find it weird that he is such a ‘boy’ – he laughs at his own farts and picks his nose and wants to touch spiders and is obsessed with vehicles and machinery of all descriptions, even though he spends his days helping me do laundry and going shopping or for coffee.

Even though he picks up so much from us and other people he is close to, there’s no mistaking the fact that from the chrysalis of babyhood Bubs is emerging as an individual with his own habits and quirks, his own sense of humour and his own independence – and he wants to exert that independence at every opportunity.  Welcome to the terrible twos!