The mother of a toddler

These days being the mother of a toddler is equivalent of having a lesson in comprehension, composure and just total and complete self control.

I can pretty much rest assure that at any time and place, in a blink of an eye, the situation can be turned into a three-ringed circus.

The problem is that I can never predict when these moments will arrive and that unpredictability is a disaster for my personality…in most of the situations, for me not even be able to vaguely prepare myself for a move from my opponent is truly unbearable.

But believe it or not, I am learning to adapt….After all it is the Darwin's law and I DO NEED to survive here!

The reality is that we can always trace “the doom and gloom” back to ourselves- one way or another:
We kept him out too late, it passed his nap time, didn’t feed him on time, didn’t understand his words and therefore responded to a different thing (after all the poor mom and dad do not have a “Rosetta stone” for toddler talk and at the same time his repertoire of words growing by the hour), didn’t entertain him enough and forgot his very short patience range …. and my very own personal favorite: we got into his “personal space” – especially without his permission (which of course needs to be taken in advance)…

I am not joking about this last one.

Years ago in preparation for a lecture that I was suppose to give, I read about this whole toddler’s personal space hoopla somewhere – especially while they will go through “terrible two” (don’t let the name fool you, it can start any time after 12 months!)

I confess this shamefully: At the time I just rolled my eyes and moved to the next chapter. Now I know how delusional I was…IT DOES EXIST!

Apparently a healthy toddler develops the sense for his personal space sometime after his first year, something that believe it or not all of us have. The difference is that we, the adults, learned somewhere down the road that we HAVE to adapt, bend, forget, disrespect and let others disrespect our personal space.

While toddlers of course, DO NOT tolerate ANY disrespect to their very own personal space.

So this can range from the time that mamma has to change his diaper, or if the doctor examines him without any pep talk or warm up, or if the dad wants to trim his nails without any “let’s do this together” talk, or if the poor hairdresser wants to give him his haircut!

The problem arises when you actually try to be aware of this concept and do the pep talk and the whole nine yard of taking the “permission”….and then your little toddler looks at you with an iron will and just tells you plainly “NO”!

You have to hear that “NO” to know what I mean. It is forceful, it is hopeless…..and then you are back to square one yet again…

In case you forgot, the power of logic does not work here. So what comes up is either some kind of a trick or bribery –
which in my case it is totally useless as my little one is truly stubborn and very focused when he sets his mind on something that is his “will” (and believe it or not he showed us this side of his personality from the VERY FIRST NIGHT outside of my uterus)-

or the other option is that you will end up holding your breath and jump in the pool of scream… and the rest you can imagine….

No matter how many times you just whisper in his ears that “it will pass quickly”, “we are almost done my dear!”, “I know it must not seem fair to you” or “you will understand and agree with us one day”, “I feel your pain, this just has to be done my dear!” or even “I am sorry for your discomfort, sorry Mamma”…still the scream is loud and the cry is tearing your heart...tears come down, face gets red, the breaths become shallow and rapid…

Meltdowns are inevitable. I used to feel so much embarrassment. I don’t feel embarrassed anymore but I still feel a total failure as a mother when I have to deal with tantrums in public…those piercing looks from strangers, the ones that clearly have no idea what is the life of a mother with a toddler….or even those sympathetic look of the people that means “been there, done that” or “thank God I don’t have to go through that one again”…all of it is unbearable for me. I feel as if I missed reading a big chapter in Toddler’s handbook and it shows what a clueless mom I am.

Once a patient of mine told me that she reached to a point that feels carrying a screaming toddler through the maze of a Wallmart in search of an exist is strangely liberating. I truly wish for that liberation sensation for myself!

But I can see that in the last 6 months after his first birthday, I moved so much ahead in dealing with these unpredictable situations. I am much calmer and at ease, both inside and out (to the surprise of myself and the others), I am more in charge and above all at least I look as if I know the end will be soon (even if I am not really sure when will the end be!)….I “look” the part to the perfection!

I also learned that one can handle everything with some degree of grace, even if one can't solve the problem right away… believe me it is quite an empowering lesson to learn.

One thing is for sure, when all goes well at the end, a parent is part detective, part linguistic, more respectful human being and a big part superhero!