Big mouth, smarty-pants: The three-nager emerges

I get to spend a good chunk of my time these days laughing my butt off.  Ethan is blooming into this little mouth on legs, full of interesting points of view, jokes and clever little quips.  Much of my laughing comes out of sheer surprise at the ways he's spontaneously decided to put words, phrases and concepts together in his own novel, unique way. 

I just have to share with you some of more hilarious things he comes out with:

1) New improved food names - Saying things right is tough, and made up words are more fun anyways, we think.  So his unintentional renaming of foods is totally brilliant.  Not cucumber, it's 'fewcumber'.  Not marshmallow, it's 'arse-mallow'.  There's also 'chino', short for cappuccino, which refers to any warm, milky, preferably chocolate-based beverage. And banana phone, which a a normal banana that we pretend to talk into, with a very serious looking face, before cracking open.

2) Onomatopoeia names - There are many hilarious times when he goes about naming things like an Australian.  The names don't sound right, but you have pretty good idea about what he's referring to because it just sounds like a sort of description of that thing.  The other day, squirt gun in hand, he says, 'Mama, I need to phew you....PHEW-phew! PHEW-PHEW!' He pretends to shoot me.  Or that the 'Tig-tig-ah' is the guitar.  He says it such a melodious way, it almost sound like strumming a tune.  Or when he asks me to 'cheese' him, which means, 'Take my photo.'

 

3) Daddy- related things - The relationship between daddy and boy is really a kind of playful power struggle wrapped in fascination with a big dose of admiration.  Ethan kind of wants to be him, kind of wants to get the better of him.  Ethan's words for daddy's things include: 'daddy's milk' (beer), 'daddy's rainbow' (the mouth guard Thom wears at night to stop grinding his teeth), ‘daddy's doggy’ (the paw print tattoo on Thomas wrist).  There are also the comparisons Ethan regularly makes about the similarities and differences between him and daddy.  The other morning he crept into the bedroom.  I spied him out of one half open eye at Thom's side of the bed, inspecting daddy intently before exclaiming at the top of his lungs, 'I have tiny fingers!'  And then there are willies, a club that I am seemingly excluded from, but is a topic of discussion for the fellas of the house.  I overhear him noting the criteria of their exclusive club with, 'You have a winky, dad? I have a winky, too!'

4) The 'shut up and stop being so clever' things - When he was my little bundle of baby fat, the hierarchy was clear cut.  We were the clever ones and he didn't know much.  Now, it is fairly obvious that the old guard is fading and clever clogs is asserting his smarty pants all over the place.  It sucks to be put in your place by a three year old, but that is apparently how it goes sometimes.  It goes like this:

Thom flicking through Instagram, 'Everyone thinks they're a model now! I could be a bloody model!' Ethan, ‘You not.' Thom looks at him open mouthed as Ethan chews a mouthful of cereal, then adds, 'I am!' 

Or when we were informed by his nursery that he was the ring leader in all the little boys covering themselves with coloured marker drawings.  As Thom was washing him off, he explained that we don't draw on ourselves, to which Ethan pointed at Thom's tattoos and astutely replied, 'But daddy do it.'

5) The world revolves around me things – It’s great that he is allowed this brief window of time where everything can seem to be about him.  As challenging as that can feel at times for the parent, it offers some hilarious times that leave me tears.  While strolling through the grocery store, an announcement booms over our heads calling for all checkout people.  Ethan, looking shocked, yells out, ‘Someone’s talking to me!’  Or when I took him to London, stopping of at my office briefly for some lunch and a potty break.  He’s meeting my colleagues and loving all the attention.  One woman I work with comes into the office and greets him with a smile, and he says, ‘You come to say hi to Ethan, too!’

He is scarily sprouting new words and phrases all the time.  Getting far too grown up for me to feel comfortable!  I ran into a friend from baby massage class in what seems like another universe now.  I remember us chatting away over our little, delicate lumps of baby.  It seems now that in those times, their little personalities were hidden, like their arms and legs under baby fat, waiting to emerge.  It struck me, as I chatted with my friend the other day, how different our little ones were now.  Still our babies, but mostly only because we knew that these chatty, opinionated little beings were physically the same as those little lumps of baby fat we massaged somewhere in the seemingly distant past.  I sometimes miss that little ball of cuddly baby, but he's so fun now, I really couldn't choose which stage is better.   It would be impossible to choose.

Let me explain you something: You don’t have to live up to the crazy ideal of ‘Yummy Mummy’

I am admittedly reading too much feminist literature at the moment.  An upcoming project on body image in female weightlifters has me surrounded by a pile of books from the 70's.  It has me thinking far too much and too deeply about the origin of our society's body norms.  But these now old women with no bras have some pretty good points.  We women spend our entire youth learning the art of feminine wiles with the ultimate aim of being attractive enough to bag a fella who's successful enough to keep us housed and fed.  And then you breed, while hopefully maintaining enough of your looks to keep him hooked.

Although it seems a pretty harsh way to look at something that for many of us is our personal love story, it does offer some perspective on the pressures faced by modern mums, and the dilemmas posed by the modern social archetype of the Yummy Mummy.  The books on my desk from the 80's mourn the death of feminism and that from the 60's, in a brief 15-20 years, it was dropped from political and social consciousness like an ugly prom date. And indeed, most women I know wouldn't count themselves as feminists, even though they'd be all up for equal pay.  So feminism got forgotten as soon as women were allowed to work and sexual harassment became an actual crime, rather than just the normal way chicks got spoken to by men.  Now feminism is kind of like a dirty word, as if pointing out any potential inequality still lurking between the genders is just being a grumpy man-hater.

But the feminists nowadays, if there are any left, would surely have something to say about the Yummy Mummy obsession in modern media and society.  It's not enough to have got pregnant, endured the birth, the sleepless nights, the contentious breastfeeding decisions, the relationship changes.  Oh no, what's important is that you looked good doing it.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the immaculately turned out mum.  The one with perfectly toned tummy, despite the three month old cooing away contentedly in her coordinated designer buggy/car seat/nappy bag combo.  Flowing, freshly washed tresses of expensive looking highlights framing a surprisingly glowing and well-rested complexion.  She's had the time to wash her jeans and that shirt looks downright ironed!  And all that before we even start with the well turned out baby.  Hot damn, how does she do it?  And what's wrong with the rest of us?  Trudging zombie-like to the corner shop with Rice Krispies in our hair.  Somebody else's Rice Krispies.  From yesterday's breakfast. 

And I guess the problem with the Yummy Mummy is that it is a concept used against the rest of the Rice Krispie encrusted ones; one that keeps us all chasing an impossible and ridiculous ideal.  A kind of measuring stick against which we all fall short.  It’s an unfair expectation, and one that places the value of a mum on her appearance primarily.  Her sexual appeal is still the most important and defining factor in her value, over and above the other million strengths, abilities and sacrifices she makes daily.  It's a distraction from the important stuff, like actually raising the kids.  As with the term MILF, which inelegantly implies that mothers fall neatly into two categories - ones that you'd still do it with and ones you wouldn't.  And as crude as it is, modern mothers would rather be a MILF than not.  But you can hardly blame them as it's an image that we are bombarded with in the media - how beautiful so-and-so looks and how fast she dropped the baby weight and how bloody happy she is.  Sorry, but I call bullshit. 

What can I say about the frumpy mum?  The fat mum? The frazzled, haggard, one trying to hold down whatever career a person can manage on three hours sleep and un-brushed teeth while still having to be the spring of eternal patience and love for little junior.  The ones that haven't lost the baby weight, can't be bothered to match their socks and let their children wear whatever scabby bits of ill-fitting clothes are clean.  These kind are ignored, although they are the real deal.  They are less represented in what we read and see and maybe even are kind of frowned upon, if we're all honest with ourselves.  Or at least it’s pretty true that the ones who appear to have all together and look good doing it are praised as the shining examples of womanhood. 

It's not fair, and I'd even go so far as to say that the label of Yummy Mummy is sexist.   I'm not blaming men.  After all, we can decide what media to read, what to believe and choose to value ourselves for more than our sexual appeal.  It's just that collectively, maybe even without realising it, we all expect a lot from a mother.  That she has it all, does it all and manages to look good doing it.  For me, I'm giving myself permission to dry shampoo another day so I can focus on what's important rather than whether or not it's attractive. 

Let me explain you something: Things that really don't fuss you about parenthood

Before baby, the things parents do seemed unthinkable.  I used to wonder how someone could possibly tolerate wiping the bum of another human being for years.  Surely, they must hate that!  

Very little sleep, spending all your money on the sprog, being fat and pregnant - all things I expected to find difficult, or just plain hate.  But the reality is so far from my imagination.  Here's the contenders for things that most surprised me about parenthood - the things I thought I would hate but actually didn't mind too much:

1) Welcome to Poo-tasia! - Are you someone who is fascinated by poo? Could you discuss poo size, smell, shape, colour and consistency on a daily basis?  If not, don't worry.  It probably means you're just not a parent yet.  When you are, the information gleaned from poo reading is invaluable.  And far from being the pile of steaming stink bomb you'd expect, somehow it becomes as normal and mundane as clipping your own toe nails.  I swear I don't even smell them sometimes.  I remember the poos not in terms of which ones were grossest, but which ones were the funniest.  Thom and I have whiled away many evenings discussing the contents of Ethan's nappy.  Good times.  On a related note: No one told us how much babies fart.  Not little, innocent puffs, but huge, ripping man farts.  These also are not as much of a concern as I would have imagined if someone had told me that a stranger is about to move in and fart on me several times a day. 

2) Money,who needs it anyways -  Little junior is like a money sponge.  I'm sure he's soaked it up somehow, but I'll be dammed if I can figure out how such a little guy absorbed so much of our cash. Babies are expensive, and that scares off lots of people.  Fair enough, I think, because luxuries in life with a baby in tow look more like a night in with a new DVD and less like a long haul holiday.  But, surprisingly, we don’t mind nearly as much as I thought we would.  Somehow, when we’ve blown our beer money on marbles, crayons and lollipops, we don’t miss it.

3) Boogers, Snot and other mucus related splats – Ever had an irresistible urge to sick your finger up someone’s nose to clear a crusty green blob so they could breathe better?  Despite choking back the puke as I write, these urges sprang up within me like instincts of a cheetah to chase an antelope.  And without thinking, or grossing myself out, boom!  I’m picking someone else's nose.  When their poor little noses are blocked, they can’t sleep, they can’t eat and they are miserable.  Somehow digging in there seems like the natural thing to do, rather than the disgusting thing it actually is.  We even had a plastic contraption of tubes that was for sucking the ‘blockage’ out.  It had a filter to catch the green bastards.   Sometimes they were so big that they would land against the filter with a big ‘thud’.  I feel I’ve lost my mind to even have done this, but there it is.

4) Saying goodbye to your old life - Janis Joplin once sang, 'Time keeps moving on. Friends, they turn away.' Sounds sad, but it's another one that didn't fuss me as much as I thought it would.  So now a good night is defined as one with a lack of puking, rather than someone overdoing it so much that they vomit.  And hangovers feel like so much hassle that the wine tastes less appealing.  And so what.  Your old friends don't call anymore and rather than feel upset, you start to see them for the immature douche-bags they are.  And it's all ok.  Life goes like that - we evolve and adjust and accept.  I don't miss the high heel blisters, little friendship dramas or over priced neon coloured shooters.  That just seems all a little bit insane compared to the crayon and play dough parties we enjoy now. 

I surprise myself.  Life is full of surprises, and I guess that's what makes it wonderful. 

Before and After: Discovering parenthood

Where does the time go?  Somehow, now that days are divided into 3-4 hourly feeds, interspersed with naps, snuggles and various incidents in the diaper region, days fly by and I suddenly realise how very long its been since my last post.  How very long its been since a lot of things, actually.  Long showers, painting fingernails, drinking a cup of tea when it's hot.  Surprisingly to me - someone who loves hot showers, nice nails and loathes cold tea - these differences only occur to me as I sit here now and purposefully reflect on the the before-and-after of my life.

Before, I might have imagined these changes as a problem.  I know that friends and readers without children could find it hard to believe that the ways you change as a parent provide reasons for joy, laughter and general amazement that life could have ever been any other way.

For instance, this morning, I attempted to give Thom a hair cut.  Before, a quick mohawk shave for Thom was part of the weekend routine, situated in between pieces of toast or croissants and strong, Sunday morning coffees.  Today, we had to employ precision timing to get this simple, everyday task done-and-dusted between Wriggly Man's feeds and naps.  After 10 minutes of silence through the baby monitor, we thought it a safe window to get the clippers out.  But Wriggly, who must be a little psychic, woke up screaming just as Thom's head was half shaved.  We hurried through (and I'm afraid this week's mohawk might be a little crooked) so I could quickly get to Ethan and comfort him.  Covered in hair clippings is no way to snuggle a baby, so I stripped down and legged it up to little man in the old birthday suit.  Ah, the big adventures that come with such a little person.

Here's a few other odd things I've noticed in parenthood:
1. Fascination with Faeces
      Baby poo is gross.  Unless it's your baby's poo, and then it's an event.  We look to it like tea leaves, saying to each other, So that's why he's been so fussy, look at that poo! It's a suitable conversation topic at any time of the day.  It's colour, consistency, timing, smell are all very, VERY interesting.  It's difficult to say what changes as a parent.  The poo still stinks.  It's still poo, and we still recoil and wash it off clothes and hands with appropriate disgust.  But it also like a little window into baby's world.  A small way we begin to understand and identify with him.  By analysing his poo, we can say to him and each other, Yes, I would also feel happy/upset/content after a poo like that.

2. Sleep is optional
      Everyone asks, Are you sleeping?  I would say, yes, except that what counts as sleep now is totally different than before.  A few stolen moments of closed eyes, when you fall instantly into a dream about doing the thing you are about to do in a minute when you wake - that counts as sleep.  So when I get an hour between 2 and 3 am, I feel practically refreshed.  Thom said to me last night that he noticed a new forehead wrinkle on his face.  I'm hardly surprised.  We look really old as we get up in the morning.  Pre-coffee, bed-head, under-eye-baggage zombie-looking people.  It would be easy for us at this point to snap and snarl at each other's ugly faces.  But once Ethan is fed and playing on his sheepskin in the morning light, we are again restored and ready to face the day on mere minutes of sleep.

3. Enjoying giving up things you enjoy
     Before you have a baby, people say to you that you'll never have a hot meal/night out/a cent to your name again.  All of this is true.  And so many more minor things go out the window as baby enters the front door.  What these negative-ninnies don't mention is that you won't mind.  Baby's happiness and calm means more than all these worldly treasures and you'll find that you'll willingly sacrifice most things in exchange for a peaceful little person.  Just the other day I found myself pillaging AAA batteries from all available devices to get Ethan's Slumber Buddy working again.  This frog-shaped nightlight, complete with lullabies and heart-beat sounds is intended to send baby off to dreamland.  And for that I thought we could survive without a TV remote, wireless mouse or any other gizmo that previously would have been sorely missed.

4. You go a little bit insane, but it's all good
      For one thing, we have become obsessive.  I wonder what Thom and I ever talked about before Wriggly Man.  Whether we are debating the meaning of a particular tone of cry, laughing a his funny little ways or day-dreaming about his future all we seem to talk about is Ethan.  Even when we aren't talking about him, the subject matter is tangentially related to him.  What's for dinner?  Well, what can be cooked in time before he wakes up for a feed?
     We have lost our minds in other ways, too.  The things that seem normal, or even desirable now would be inconceivable to a person in their right mind.  Basic baby-tending behaviour sounds insane sometimes and even more so for the fact that these crazy things we do for baby feel ok.  If baby's nose is stuffed up, sucking the snot out of it seems like the best thing to do.  Sucking the snot out of somebody else's nose is normal.  Who'd have imagined? If baby is gnawing and pulling at my breast, I wonder if he doesn't like the taste today.  Sounds crazy.   There is no doubt that we have lost our minds, but it feels alright.

5. Baby crying is less annoying than you might imagine
      It's not annoying at all.  It is, however, heart-breaking.  Before baby, when you hear a baby cry in on an airplane or in the supermarket it is a difficult sound to tolerate.  But since Ethan, the crying is nothing like those times.  If we can divine what the crying might  be about - hungry, sleepy, cold - it isn't so bad because we can do something.  We spring into action with the calm assurance that crying will soon be comforted with whatever it is he needs.  But Ethan has no other way of communicating with us and sometimes we don't get it.  The sound of him crying is utterly tragic to us when we can't fix it.  Minutes feel like hours when he cries, but not because of annoyance.  It's because we want to cry with him.  I take it as all part of us gelling as a little emerging family.  When one cries, we are all sad.  But also when one is happy, we all smile.