Toddlerhood

I have recently cut back my hours at work from three to two days per week, and the impact on my lifestyle has been surprisingly intense. I'm now spending five days straight with Baby Girl, who has responded to this increase in attention with an exponential rise in interrogation.

On Tuesday night, after I pick her up from daycare, I think that her voice is the sweetest thing in the world. The most innocent question, i.e. "What doing, Momma?" sounds so cute coming from that tiny little voice and that tiny little person.

By Friday, things sound a bit different. "What doing, Momma?" is now answered with "Walking a thin line between sanity and calling social services on myself, dear child."

I've realized this week that toddlers are a combination of two things; curiosity and greed. What is it? Can I have it? What is that, what are you doing, what is he doing, what is she doing, what are they doing....and can I have it? I need that, Momma, can I have it? The first question is occasionally difficult to answer, but the response to the second question is typically NO.

The problem with toddlers is that explaining what it is and that no, you can't have it, does not end the conversation. The question will be repeated, like a song stuck in her head, until something else comes along to grab her attention.

My sister passed on a great bit of wisdom when she theorized that explaining things to a toddler can be like reasoning with the unreasonable. I know from my training as a therapist that Baby Girl doesn't have the brain structure to process all of the information that she is receiving. I imagine her brain is sort of like a mail room for a huge office...tons of information comes in all the time and she is furiously sorting through it to figure out where it goes. It must be frustrating to have a letter jammed in the system, or come across stuff that doesn't fit in to her current filing system.

(But seriously, don't take it out on me! I just work here!)

I realize that some of my growing sense of alarm is tied to the fact that there is another child set to make her debut in the very near future. When difficulties arise, the question in the back of my head is not "Can I have it?" but "How am I going to do this with two kids?". Followed quickly, of course, by "What was I thinking?"

Hubsy, one of those irritatingly optimistic people I've discussed in previous posts, had some interesting insight. He started off by saying something along the lines of "I think there is..." before I cut him off.

"Let me guess," I said with no small measure of sarcasm. "You think there is a way of looking at the bright side that is going to make all the difference?"

He looked a bit hurt at my seemingly random attack on his positivity, but forged fearlessly ahead with his idea. "I think that in three years, the two of them will play together like puppies and take some of the heat off you."

A part of me knows that he is right, but most of me got stuck on the "...in three years..." part. I'm only promising good behavior on an afternoon-by-afternoon basis. Talking about three years from now is assuming a lot.

Hubsy, seeing the look of dismay on my face, tried a different approach. "Well, at least you'll be able to go to the bar soon!"

Now, that's more like it.