My Toddler, My Teacher

This parenting lark is one never-ending series of lessons learnt the hard way - of things that you feel you should already know, but just never crossed your mind.  Such as:  If you give your baby an ice-cream cone to hold while she’s strapped to your back, she will rub the entire thing on your hair then drop the remains down your back where it will sit for the next hour (I spose that one should really have crossed my mind);  a hungry toddler will eat anything, including a bowl of dog-biscuits (ditto); and you should never ever have a newly-communicating 2 year old in a public place without having a lollipop – or other shutting-up device – to hand.

I usually do bring a lolly with me on all outings, but I stupidly thought that bringing him on the under-the-ground train before we went away was going to be a treat enough in itself for the Boy.  Plus I suspect I had an idiotic notion that we would in some way be sitting there like a poster of toddler idyll – me, calm and unruffled, him chattering sweetly and innocently, oblivious to the admiring and appreciative glances from fellow-passengers – and that lollies would somehow upset this perfect picture of parenthood.

Unfortunately, we were in a largely empty carriage for the outward journey, so were unlikely to get too many admiring glances.  And in any event, as soon as the Boy opened his mouth, the whole idyll was instantly – and spectacularly - shattered. 

“What’s that man doo-ning?” he demanded.

I looked around.  There was no man.  There was a tall, er, handsome lady, who was knitting, but she was man-less. “What man?” As soon as I said this I realised my error.   

“THAT man,” he said, pointing.

At the lady.

Who was now looking at us.  I gave my brightest aren’t-you-a-sweet-but-silly-thing smile. 

“The lady is knitting,” I said, confident of his next question.

“Him not a lady, him a man.”

Oh God.  Him the lady was starting to look a bit annoyed.  I decided to dig our way out of this social hole with the tool of inane chatter.

“Knitting is when you make clothes out of wool.”

“Why him making clothes?”

“Maybe for his her baby, or cat, or just for fun!” Please please please let this be the end of it.

A pause.  Thank you God.

“Man?  MAN! Why you making clothes??”

By now the train had pulled into a station, stopped, and the doors were open.  I contemplated bolting. Without him.  Then inspiration hit.

“Oh no!  Where’s Eddie gone?  Did we lose him?” said with slight – and entirely false – hysteria.  (Eddie is the Boy’s Favourite Thing In The Entire World. He’s an elephant blanket thingy which, because of the unimaginable hysteria which would follow his loss , is never allowed to leave his bedroom.  Thus, he wasn’t even with us on the journey, but I needed to catch his attention and create a distraction.  It was the toddler equivalent of spilling a cup of scalding coffee on his lap.)

His eyes widened, he froze, then his face crumpled.  Short of “there’s no more sugar in the world”, it was, possibly, the worst thing I could have said.  Attention distracted from the (wo)man opposite us, I then “remembered” that we hadn’t in fact bought him. He, however, was having none of it.  The seed of devastation had been sown, and no amount of persuasion that Eddie was safe at home in bed would be accepted.  He was still sobbing by the time we alighted, four stops later.  On the plus side, the knitting giantess wasn’t mentioned – or shouted at - again. 

After a harrowing and exhausting day spent largely trying to stop him throwing things off the pedestrian bridge at Embankment, we elbowed our way onto a fairly busy Tube home.  The Boy plunged right in again.

“Him have a very cross face.”  Again pointing, and “cross” said in his evil demonic voice.  In his defence, he had a point.  Him not only had a very cross face, but the cold stare (and large, murderous hands)  of a Balkan general.

“Him cross eye.”

Said cross eye was now glaring at us both.  Time for An Intervention.  Because, you know, the last one had gone so well. 

“He’s not cross, he’s just thinking.” 

“What him thinking about?”

“Oh, probably his work.”  As a sniper.  

A pause.  Then – “Mummy, yesterday...”  In that brief nano-second I allowed myself a congratulatory inward sigh of satisfaction -  the deflection had worked.  “...why you saying For Fuck’s Sake all day long?”

I glanced at the assassin, who glared and raised his eyebrows in a shocked what-sort-of-parent-are-you-anyway sort of way. 

“I was cross.  I’m sorry. “

“Cross like that man cross?”

Oh God.  “Look over there, a puppy!”

There was clearly no puppy.  There was, however, a very very large sweating man, staring straight at us.

“Mummy look!   Him big fat man!” 

We had seven stops to go. There was only one thing for it.

“Oh no!  Where’s Eddie gone?”

It works every time – something I won’t be forgetting in future. (And who needs lollipops anyway, when you can bestow the gift of trauma?)