My two-year-old has changed tremendously in recent months. So much so I am honestly struggling to keep up with him. I am ok with him using words I can’t remember using in front of him. I can cope with him putting 2 and 2 together. I even think it is adorable that he has begun to give me orders like ‘I think you need a shower Mummy. It will make you feel better. Go on, do it now.‘ And how he directs me to eat even when ‘morning sickness’ is telling me the opposite ‘It’s dinner time Mum. You should eat now anyway.’

What drives me insane is that his little brain  is curious and clever. He decided the other day to take apart the vacuum cleaner. The day before that he tried to get into the belly of his toy screw-driver to see how it worked. Whenever he finds a real screw driver he goes and tightens the bolts on his table and chairs. Yes, for real. He has half a book memorised already and we only began reading it to him at bedtime 5 days ago. All of these things should be good, right?

Well yes and no. Yes because he is obviously enjoying exploring his world and no because I am at a loss as how to keep him entertained and challenged. Every day I try to cover something educational; the alphabet, numbers from 1-20, how to tell the time, geometry, animal documentaries, reading books. Sometimes he is interested, sometimes he isn’t. I try to do something crafty every day. He loves to paint, draw, use chalk, colour. He is obsessed with learning to use scissors and glue. It might have something to do with his recent obsession with going to school. Real school. Big school.

So I got ballsy and set up paper mache… What was I thinking? Was I even thinking at all? Obviously my brain got up and walked away on its own two legs. I watered down wood glue and put it in a big tray in front of a toddler. In the middle of my living room. Insanity! Of course he splashed his hands in it. Of course we argued that glue splatters were not a design feature for my couch. Of course he got bored within 5 minutes. Of course I ended up covered in glue (in fact I think I am still malting little dried bits of wood glue even now). To top it off as soon as I hung the balloon to dry it popped and the paper mache is now a crumpled mess hanging from my bathroom ceiling.

*Sigh* Epic Mum Fail. I hope one day I get the hang of this.

From last week on, expect to find me musing about motherhood on a Monday. Weekends are ‘family time’ in our household and so there is usually plenty for me to chew over and ponder. Like what was I thinking when I decided to have kids? How much had I been drinking? And did I ever actually decide?

Sometimes I will share some of the funnier aspects of motherhood. For example we were walking through our local shopping center recently and my son was singing happily. He does that a LOT. He has recently discovered that songs aren’t written is stone and that he can change words to change the meaning. Fantastic! That is another milestone ticked off. Well his change ticked me off too. He started singing;

“Old McDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a Mummy E-I-E-I-O. With a Moo Moo here and a Moo Moo there…”

“Are you calling Mummy a Cow?” I ask, expecting him to say he was just being silly. No such luck.

“Yep! Mummy is a Moo-Cow. Moo!” Delightful, just delightful.

Worse still he has a habit of copying his father. (Yeah, you already have that ‘oh dear’ feeling don’t you?) Well my husband is still sickeningly in love with me, *awwww* and as never been put off by my changing body. He still finds it sexy! How lucky am I to have picked a delusional man to marry! Anyhow, Cooper hears his father call me sexy often. And I have a habit of tickling the top of Cooper’s thighs (just under his bum) because it is his most ticklish spot. So Cooper walks up behind me, and using his big boy manners, asks “Hey sexy lady, can I play with your bum?” Yet another talk about boundaries and appropriateness ensued. I had to wait until later to burst into laughter.

I have a thing about raising my son in the real world. We teach him the names for vegetables, explain where beef and chicken comes from, give him real explanations about differences in race, culture and religion and taught him all the proper names for his body parts.

There are obvious advantages we see to this type of parenting; there is no backtracking to explain lies later, no embarrassing bullshit explanations that can be repeated in company, no later rebellion when he realises that Baa Baa Black Sheep is actually on his dinner plate.

I didn’t think about the disadvantages though. They aren’t quite so obvious.

We had about 40 minutes, once at our gate, to wait before boarding our flight to Cairns. There is nothing worse than dragging a toddler through an airport at high speeds then asking them to sit still and calm for 3 hours. Trust me, I have done that before. We were sitting across from a young Scandinavian family (no stereotyping here, from the comics the children were reading it was obvious) in the lounge; Mum, Dad and 2 girls about 4 and 7. It was just then that my darling little man decides it’s a good time to put his hand down his pants. (As a side note we have rules about that; 1) at home with no guests go for it 2) in public don’t even think about it, it could offend people.)

I lean over and whisper that we are in public, and that it’s not ok to put your hands down your pants. To which he replies, at the top of his lungs, “BUT I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY PENIS NOW!” Yeah, you guessed it, I couldn’t find a hole to crawl into and he just didn’t let up with the playing or the running commentary. When I thought I would just die with embarrassment the beautiful Scandinavian Mum across from me leans over and, with a smile, says ‘It’s a wonderful age, isn’t it?’ Damn! I was hoping she couldn’t speak English.

*Photo credit

Yesterday was a shitty shitty day. Sorry Nan I know it was your birthday, but we will celebrate your birthday on Sunday. So I would love, Love, LOVE to just forget yesterday ever happened. But alas, vanquishing days isn’t yet in my repertoire so the next best thing is to share the tragedy so as it may become a comedy [for you].

My day started at 7.20am, pretty usual really, with the toddler crash tackling me in bed crying ‘Are you awake yet Mummy?’ 20 minutes later however, it was already the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end sounded something like this:

“Mummy, can I have a cookie please?” He had his head tilted to the side and the cutest smile he could muster.

“No, Cooper its waaaaaay too early for a cookie hunny.” At this stage I was almost dismissing the request – we’d all eat cookies before 8am if we could justify it, right?

“But Mummy, I said please!”

“Cooper, you know the rules no cookies before 10am” So shoot me – it’s a time I can live with. “Do you want me to set the alarm?” Yes, he enforces times to the minute.

“Daddy will give me a cookie. Can you bring Daddy home?”

Yes, straight from the horse’s mouth. Daddy said it was ok to eat cookies at breakfast time? Wouldn’t surprise me really, his father regularly ate cake for breakfast before Cooper began eating breakfast with him. But I let it slide.

BUT he just wouldn’t let go of that bloody cookie. He alternated between tantruming full on, negotiating with me “Can I have ice cream instead? Licorice – licorice isn’t a sweet!” and just acting out. An hour of this and you could have heard the keys being pounded from the other side of the house. Hubby got a rather strongly worded email that stopped shot of saying “YOU GAVE HIM A COOKIE AT BREAKFAST TIME? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!#! HE IS MAKING MY LIFE A LIVING HELL!”

When I got a random call from my parents I rolled my eyes at the timing. Until Mum told me she was returning Coopers call. The little bugger had called MY MUM to dob on me that I wasn’t giving him a Cookie. For Fucks sake! Mummy just needs a break!

I managed for another 45 minutes then I caved. I changed the digital clocks to read 10:00 at 9.45 and gave him the damned cookie. For 2 minutes I had pure, blissful silence, then: “Mummy, can I have another cookie please?” My face must have said it all because he didn’t wait for an answer he just began a chant of “I want another cookie!”

By this stage we should have already left for play group. I started with the easy bits and packed his lunch box then I started dressing him. Well, trying. I tried and I reasoned and I wrangled and I sighed and I screamed and I shrieked and I threatened and I gave up and then I threatened some more. I am actually quite chuffed that I didn’t smack (I’m don’t want to be that kind of Mum) and I didn’t lock him in his room.

We finally walked out of the door at 10.35. Yep 35 minutes late and its about a 10-15 minute walk (if you have legs about a foot long). I was facing the prospect of walking into a relatively new play group, with a toddler 45 min late, with no explanation other than ‘he wanted a cookie’ or more generically ‘we had a bad morning’. Instead I sat on my front fence, totally defeated, called my husband and cried. I recall blubbering something along the lines of ‘I don’t want to go, I’m the crappest Mum ever! You can’t make me go!”

The morning got worse. We went to the park. Cooper ran full pelt (which is pretty bloody fast) into the supports that hold up the play equipment. (For a bright kid he sometimes does some daft stuff.) He hit himself on the side of the head, staggered around unable to walk straight and fell face first onto a cross-bar, splitting both his lips. Screaming like his intestines were being removed, dripping blood from the mouth I carried the war wounded home. Standing at my front door, toddler still sobbing, I found my pockets empty.

Empty? How the hell are they empty? What the fuck did I do with the house keys? They weren’t in my bag, my pockets, the lunch box. Damn, damn, damn! Then I remembered the letterbox. I checked the mail on the way to the park and my house keys were still swinging pleasantly from the lock clearly marked number 2.

Stay tuned for Part 2. This day actually got worse.