On the Raw – Toddlers
My beautiful, helpful, sharing, wonderfully inquisitive child decided last night that sleep was something for the lesser creatures of the world. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, and is all part of the magical joy of parenting. Did I say joy? I meant horrendous nightmare scenario which causes premature aging. And joy. Premature aging and copious amounts of joy. It’s such a weird dichotomy of feeling. This morning when I awoke, at 7 AM to a crying child desperate for freedom, I honestly thought there was no way I would make it through the day. I live and die by my ability to make up for lost time by sleeping in on the weekends. That… didn’t happen. I’m sitting at my computer, barely able to keep my eyes open, and my son SO FULL OF ENERGY HE CANNOT REMAIN STILL, laughs and smiles at me. He cries for my attention in his own shouting way, then proceeds to spin around until he is no longer able to stand up. The entire time, he is laughing with the maniacal glee of a madman mid-mad pursuit. It was most infectious laughter, and soon we were both laughing and smiling wide enough to break our faces. It was a moment that will linger long after today, one that I wouldn’t have traded for anything.
Toddlers are just like that. They are capable of mind meltingly stupid ideas, followed by moments of such sheer enjoyment of living that you forgive them anything. This morning, as I lay on the couch trying my best to sneak in some quiet introspection (aka a nap) my son brings my blanket to me. It’s the blanket that I use for everything, made for me by the mother of one of my best friends. It was the sweetest thing. He saw that I was laying down, and the first thing that runs through his mind is to bring me the blanket he always sees me with. It was freakin adorable. He’s such a sweet young child. Five minutes later, I’m frantically tearing apart the basement for the requisite wires to play a comfort video game to try and cope with slight complications from my medicine (or lack thereof) as I hear ominous crash after ominous crash coming from upstairs. He’s just destroying things, and I know it, but I can’t stop searching for this because I have rituals and they are the only thing standing between me and a random idiotic one-sided shouting match with a little man who literally does not know what is going on. Not good times.
Raising a child is a unique venture. I know that once my son is older, I will long for the days when he was younger. Nostalgia is a thing that I did not invent, and something that I suffer from rather severely. Yet my own personal sweet spot for his childhood will be once he can talk to me about what is wrong. When I can begin to reason with him. When we can share in activities that are slightly more advanced than placing blocks in the container for the blocks, then dumping them out on the floor. This activity is a perennial favorite, and will keep him entertained for hours. Just now, we sat on the floor and played with an older video game controller I brought upstairs. He plugged the controller into my belly button people. It is impossible for anything to be cuter, I defy you to find it. Pics or it didn’t happen. And then he turns around and climbs on my office chair and tries to pull everything on my desk onto the floor. Madness.
