Those Days When Someone Throws Your Spoon Away And Eats Soil
Struggles of life with a two year old.
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Yesterday I had a day off work. I imagined a relaxing fun day with my toddler. At work I am always wishing I could work less and spend more time with him. I planned to go out for a lovely family meal.
Except yesterday I spent most of my time wishing I was at work.
My toddler is getting over a cold and I had his cold. This meant neither of us was in the best mood. It wasn’t a good start.
I took him to a playgroup round the corner. This was good as I managed to drink a whole cup of tea, and my son loves the toy vehicles and singing. Afterwards though everything went downhill.
I wanted to go out for some lunch. My toddler said he wanted to nap. Ok, plans are flexible let’s nap now, and then we can go out for dinner in the evening. Toddler went to bed and lay there for a few minutes. Guess what? He didn’t nap. He got up.
He pulled some washing off the dryer and giggled when I told him no.
He rubbed his eyes and looked sleepy. We went to try the nap again. He tried for about twenty minutes. No sleeping.
So, we decided to go out for some lunch after all and go to the post office. Fresh air is good. My toddler was excited about handing the lady at the Post Office the parcel. Eventually we managed to get the toddler to wear both shoes and a coat, and left.
However a few steps outside the house my toddler had a tantrum. He wanted to stay at home. My partner went to the Post Office alone. I went back inside with the toddler, and took the shoes and coat off him.
We got in and lay down on the bed. He still couldn’t work out how to sleep.
I asked my toddler if he wanted corn flakes. He said no. I decided to eat some corn flakes myself. My toddler grabbed my spoon and started eating. So I got my toddler his own spoon and said let’s share. He grabbed my spoon and walked over and threw it in the kitchen bin. He looked at me as if to say, ‘Mummy how dare you think you can eat these corn flakes’ and then went back to eat the corn flakes with his spoon.
The rest of the afternoon was more not sleeping, pulling the same washing off the dryer again and knocking water over deliberately.
At about 4pm I decided enough was enough and to go outside. I took my toddler out to the playpark with his toy digger. We played with the digger, and he practised digging with his hands. When I wasn’t paying quite enough attention, he ate some soil and giggled. He has not eaten soil (or anything he isn’t supposed to) for over a year.
I carried him home ‘like a forklift’ because he would only agree to walk in the wrong direction. We gave him a bath to wash off the soil. He started his nap at 5pm. So we stayed in for dinner. Around 8:30pm he woke up ready to pull some washing off, and then couldn’t sleep again until after midnight.
I love my toddler very much. I know he is acting like a typical 2 year old and testing boundaries. I know this behaviour is nothing extreme. But sometimes I just want to hide away.
