The Baby

Toddlers are totally insane aren’t they?  This isn’t exactly news to me, but the sheer magnitude of the insanity is more obvious the third time around – possibly because when the Boy was 2½ I had an 8 month old to deal with, and when the Girl was that age I had (HORROR) a newborn. (And a 4 year old. HOW DID I DO IT??)  Now I have a small crazy person who exists in an orb of craziness containing only herself.

Here she is – proof of the dementia:

That photo wasn’t staged, by the way – she hissed until I passed her the teeth and popped them in all by herself.  (She’s been hissing – and spitting – ever since she saw Jurassic Park last week*;  seems that the large spitting dinosaurs made quite the impression on her.)  Then she wore them for two hours, drool running down her face the entire time. (Also, that photo, teeth aside, isn't very flattering.  She is really quite cute.  We just have to remember not to put her in the Boy's scraggy old pjs and to brush her hair occasionally.)

Like all the best mad people, she likes to collect things - in this case, cats – stuffed, plastic, paper, wooden – and carries as many as she can around with her at all times. They are all called “Am-ow”, the name solemnly declared after protracted thought.   "Am-ow" is actually her favourite word. We play an after-dinner game, whereby I ask the kids three questions (eg: What would you eat for your last dinner?  What will you be when you grow up?  Who do you love more, Mum or Dad?), and to these questions, every single time she answers – deadly serious – “Am-ow Woof Woof.” The other kids then shriek with glee and the Baby stands up in her high chair and takes a bow.  It’s fucking hilarious.  

Her madness comes into its own at bedtime – when, unsurprisingly, she refuses to go to bed until the others are  going too.  This, I think, is at the root of her very being:  she thinks she is one of them – older, calmer, in need of less sleep.  So I lie on my bed reading bedtime stories at 730pm – half an hour after the Baby’s bedtime - the Boy snuggling on one side, the Girl on the other, and the Baby sprawled on top of me, wriggling unceasingly, cackling manically and periodically ripping pages out of the book.  Then we have the great Go To Bed Charade, where the Boy and the Girl pretend to go to bed, and I whisk the Baby off to her room, zip her up into her bag (inside out and backwards), tuck her in with her retinue of cats, and begin the process of... emptying her room of everything in it.  She’s very polite about it – sits up in bed pointing at objects, banishing them for the night. “Aaaaaaaand... DAT! Da, Mama.  Aaaaaaand... DAT!  Da, Mama.   Aaaaaaand... DAT!  Da, Mama.”  (She is nothing if not well mannered.) Then, once the room is suitably empty, she lies back down, pulls the blankets up over her face, and whispers to all of the Am-ows; when I go to check on her later on, she’s lying there, still under the blanket, a halo of stuffed cats encircling her.  It’s very sweet.  

I’m tempted to wish that it continues for as long as possible, but I think that only a 2 year old can get away with it.  Any older and it stops being funny and sweet and becomes... troubling. 

Anyway.  All this because it struck me today that she is now the oldest youngest child I have ever had.  That teeny speck of light in the distance? That is the end of the tunnel my friends... I am both jubilant and a little bit sad.   

*What?  Jurassic Park is TOTALLY appropriate for a 2 year old. It's the 4 and 6 year olds who've been having the nightmares...