The Second Chance

I recalled not enjoying the newborn experience with my first child. It was a shocker for me as I discovered my life revolved around 24 hours around a baby. The loss of personal space and time was overbearing. I thought it weird when other parents told me to enjoy the newborn period because it will get harder when they start crawling and eventually running around! At that time, I could not understand.

Now, I finally got it. My 2 year old is indeed harder to manage than my second child (he is 7 weeks old). It was God’s second chance for me to enjoy the newborn experience. The night feeds did not feel so daunting and tireless. Perhaps the only hard part is putting him to sleep when he is over-stimulated or burping him when he has gas. I am counting my blessings.

Case in point – the toddler is more difficult than the infant. My husband and I have to strategise how to leave home with the infant in order to avoid a meltdown by my toddler. We use new toys to distract and calm him down. We discuss how to manage his regression (yes it actually happens!) in the form of whining at the end of bedtime routines and night wakings. He also acts out of the norm by sleeping on the floor close to his room door that we can’t open it. My husband ends up having to sleep in his bed on some nights. There could not be any other journey that throws us such unexpected surprises.

By God’s grace, there are second chances for moments we missed out. Re-live and relish.

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Musings of Raising a Toddler

1) I acquired the skill of interpreting unintelligible syllabus that actually mean something. I have to be good at it, or, I face a toddler throwing another tantrum because I didn’t understand him.

2) The toddler runs and prances around the house, but when he’s outside, he wants to be carried. Isn’t wide open spaces an enticement for working out those limbs?

3) When he speaks one word, it means a whole lot.

He was looking out the window on a Sunday morning, and suddenly spouted ‘God’.

I said, “God? Do you see him outside?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “How does he look like?”

He said, “God make the sun.”

4) We get a good laugh at his funny grammar. He is learning to place ‘the’ before nouns, but he does not know yet that the grammar rule does not apply to proper nouns or that it comes before the adjective-noun. We get phrases like ‘Catch the Mama/Papa’, ‘Orange the door’, ‘Watch the Dora’.

5) I start talking in third person when speaking to him, calling myself ‘Mama’ while he calls himself ‘Phyphy’ or ‘Raphy’ (Zephy is what we call him in short).