I now own a toddler. This is my life:
- Struggling to take a bite of anything without finding a toddler’s mouth attached to the other end of it.
- Resigning myself to the fact that my house may never, ever be tidy again.
- Rejoicing in the fact that I now have an excuse for the fact that my house is never, ever tidy.
- Knowing that any meal out that involves my son will mostly be spent picking up bits of food and crayon that have been lobbed at my fellow diners, apologising to fellow diners, and pushing everything on the table into one far corner so that it’s out of the reach of my toddlers flailing arms. And so I can no longer reach the pizza that went cold as I was trying to cram a pea into my child’s mouth for 20 minutes as he launched aforementioned crayons.
- Stepping on Duplo roughly every four steps. Or picking up my son after he has stepped on Duplo.
- Picking up a bottle of water / glass of juice / mug of tea from anywhere around the house and knowing there’s a good chance it’s at least 50% made up of my toddler’s saliva.
- Saying the word ‘carefully!’ so many times in a row that it starts to lose all meaning.
- Resigning myself to the fact that he’s eaten about a hairball’s worth of carpet in dropped and picked up raisins in the last week alone and there is really little I can do about it apart from investing in a muzzle.
- Considering how much easier it would be if toddlers wore muzzles.
- And had leads.
- Wanting to shout at people in the street that don’t return my son’s coy little waves.
- Wanting to hug people that do.
- Being completely and utterly blown away every day at his capacity to learn new skills and practice and repeat actions until he perfects them.
- Feeling like my heart will burst when he comes toddling toward me with his arms outstretched when I get back from work.
- …And then having my heart broken when I realise he was actually aiming for the cat. Again.
