ENTERING THE TODDLER ZONE! When I gave birth to my son, I thought that I got the hang of things rather well. I didn't leave him on a bus (phew), I didn't drop him on his head (double phew) and I dealt with the double traumas of sleep deprivation and never eating a meal without jumping up at least 16 times by sleeping at work and cutting down on food! So much for little babies! I have now entered, correction, my family and many other innocent bystanders in Watford have now entered
. the Toddler Zone. I like to call it this because I am terrified by the imminent tantrum horrors I know are around every corner. I am exhausted because I know I should be asleep in bed, and convinced that what is happening to my angelic baby is more paranormal than the AGM of the national telekinesis society. To be blunt, the Toddler Zone is not just about cute sayings, singing nursery rhymes, squidgy coloured dough and 'learning through play'. No, that's just the junk that people who are post Toddler Zone and pre-teenage zone like you to believe in their helpful books. Don't get me wrong, Charlie amazes and humbles me everyday with his awe and excitement about things I find so humdrum I could snooze through doing them. Putting milk bottles out is something he almost jumps up and down about. I can't remember the last time I jumped up and down about anything, except perhaps when I was at the height of my fitness fad. Charlie was late walking, and as other kids careered around us as if they had been born running marathons, I used to wonder if he would ever toddle at all. I was wrong. He positively polka'd into toddlerhood with the confidence and attitude of a gangsta rapper and has embraced the concept of the terrible twos with such gusto that I am longing for teenage hood when (I am reliably informed) he will sleep 23 hours per day. If he decides to, he will argue about anything, and I mean anything, and I have found myself agreeing with him that the sky is indeed made of bananas rather than prolong the conflict.  The Toddler Zone is not just about cute sayings, singing nursery rhymes, squidgy coloured dough and 'learning through play'. That's just the junk that people who are post Toddler Zone and pre-teenage zone like you to believe in their helpful books.  | Julia Hames |
He will say 'What Mummy' repeatedly, increasing the volume each time until my ears are bleeding and then when I respond at similar decibels he will whisper that I should stop shouting. Aggh! Yes! He's right! I should! I have 33 years on Charlie, how can he outsmart me all the time? I think my local supermarket has probably come off worse in his battle for independence. He refuses to sit in the trolley, he delights in calling every female in spectacles 'Grandma' and most recently has developed a slightly worrying obsession with binbags, freezerbags and bubblegum. One of the most memorable moments was when I thought that taking his favourite teddy bear as a pal might help alleviate his misery at shopping. It did, for about two aisles. But then I watched in horror, along with other shoppers, as Charlie hurled teddy into the air, with some spin I might add, and gaped as the bear curled round beautifully in mid-air before lodging itself behind the plastic butchers counter and slap bang in the silverside beef display. It's difficult to extricate a soft toy from such a position, and as I stammered my apologies I heard everything from 'Tut tut he's a right handful' to 'Well she shouldn't bring him to the shops' to the decidedly paranoid 'Oh my God the meat's contaminated'. Actually that was fair enough, if they had known what that teddy has been subjected to, Health and Safety would have closed the store. Charlie has recently encountered the full flush of jealousy. His first deadly sin - unless, of course, you count gluttony where smarties are concerned. It's not his fault, someone new has entered his world at the childminders and guess what? All of the adults who are meant to know what they're doing, me included, failed to see that this might unsettle him a bit. And it did. It really upset him. And in his way, he let us know. So now we are dealing with it and things are improving. He can be quite physical, and his way of dealing with something that displeases him is to remove it by thumping or throwing it - animal, mineral or vegetable. We remove him quickly from the scene of the crime and rather than press charges, we caution him. He doesn't bite (yet!) but he does take a rather practical approach to things that irritate him. At least you know where you stand with him, even if it is at five paces away. My mother, who adores him because it's illegal not to, has told me on many occasions to get 'topside' of him! Topside? Silverside? it's like parenting in an abattoir sometimes! Anyway topside, I presume, means being the boss. And I do try. But the thing about toddlers, or my toddler at least, is that in many ways he knows he's the boss. He knows if he cries at night I'll be there like a rocket, albeit a bleary-eyed rocket. He knows if he wants a cuddle I'll be there with arms outstretched, and perhaps I'm missing something here but as a 'boss' at work I don't respond in quite the same way to distressed colleagues. Can't hug them, it's harassment, and if they rang me at 2am in tears I think I'd be reaching for the disciplinary policy. Apart from our shopping trips, Charlie's other main pressure point seems to be wearing jumpers. And trousers. | If he decides to, he will argue about anything, and I mean anything, and I have found myself agreeing with him that the sky is indeed made of bananas rather than prolong the conflict. | Julia Hames |
He will happily strip naked in sub zero temperatures and protest vehemently as you try to dress him before hypothermia sets in. On many occasions I have chased him round the local park like a demented female Benny Hill while he swivels his hips and stands like a cowboy with his thumbs in the holster of his nappy. Other kids are wrapped up in their funky knitwear and their mothers look at me with borderline pity. Dressing him in the mornings is a job for two adults with steely determination and the negotiating skills of a UN diplomat. I think Charlie is at his happiest wearing just wellies, a scary thought for future girlfriends. Charlie is a normal, boisterous child. He likes the moon but doesn't like my neighbour, and has learnt all the words to a Will Young song I still can't quite remember myself. He lives for his little torch, and 'Pink' (a small ball he carries everywhere) and if I sneeze he is very quick with a 'bleshu mommy'. He tells me 'I lub you mommy' and OK he spoils it slightly by assisting the cat through the cat flap with his foot, but I think he means well. I often wonder what he will do as an adult, and while I have reasonably modest ambitions, I have in dark moments seriously pondered the career and educational prospects for a naked wellie- wearing shot putter. But on good days, like when my childminder reports that he has only been to the naughty stair once or twice, I decide that in our haste to have kids walking and talking and appreciating fine art, we adults forget that little people deal with life's little challenges by lashing out sometimes. They say 'LOOK AT ME! I AM REALLY, REALLY CROSS! AND TO PROVE IT I AM GOING TO DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO FORCE YOU TO HELP ME. I CAN'T GET DRUNK, SMOKE A FAG OR DRIVE AGGRESSIVELY, SO HERE I AM AND YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN! AND SO IS EVERYONE ELSE!!!' Now, be honest
.aren't you just the teensiest bit envious of him?! 
| Amber Keynes, Welwyn | Tuesday, 13-Apr-2004 00:42:03 BST |  | | Julia Hames - absolutely hilarious and also completley accurate. As a mother myself, of a child going through the same stage, I can completley sympathise! Why is it that a small child's voice can carry above anyone else's? Especially when they are saying something particualarly embarassing! Oh dear, I've had my fair share of that, believe me! |
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