Me and Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Mr Dickens was writing about revolutionary France, but recently I've been wondering whether he was really trying to explain how it feels to mother a one year old.

At the moment, I'm having to eat every word I've ever said or thought about toddlers. Our babies aren't walking yet, but suddenly ,they are so different. They might not be officially toddling, but those proper baby days are definitely over. Suddenly, we're seeing behaviour that I wasn't prepared for, and it seems that I have no way of effectively dealing with it. I keep reading books that glibly advise 'a firm "NO" ' as the answer and I find myself thinking 'are you KIDDING me?' Our boy is utterly impervious to the word no. He understands it, but he's not interested in it. Instead, I need to pick him up and physically move him away from whatever it is he isn't supposed to be touching, and that causes a nuclear meltdown. I didn't realise such a small child could have such a big tantrum. And if I'm honest, I didn't really think that any child of mine would ever have a tantrum at all.

After about 8 weeks of training, I think that he may, possibly, have learned not to eat snacks from the cat's food bowl. Possibly. We'll see how tomorrow goes. But that's it for parenting successes. I find myself astonished, every day, by how little I can do to manage his behaviour. I always assumed that children's behaviour reflected their parents' actions, and now... I think I was wrong. OK, I hope I was wrong. "Loving consistent boundaries!" I said to the social worker, and I meant it. And do manage to do it, pretty much, by the grace of God, generally. Mostly. I think. And I try to make as much of the house as possible a 'yes-zone' where it's all safe, nothing is out of bounds, and the potential for conflict is minimised. But wow, it turns out that this is a child who can have a tantrum when I offer him a sippy cup of water. I should say here that, as far as I can tell, I don't think any of this is adoption related. I think it's human-condition related, and that's even more unfixable. The two things I say most often in frustration are "Baby I! Mummy is not making you eat it! I'm just offering it to you" and "It's not healthy to sit in poop all day! You really do need a clean nappy, I'm not doing this for fun!" but the rage continues and I'm all at sea.

The thing is, along with all of this, we also have a child who does behave like the children in the books. A firm "NO" in her direction is enough, and sometimes more than enough. If she was my only child, or if I had other children like her, I would think I had this parenting thing sussed. But it's extremely clear that I don't. I get so frustrated with him, and with my own lack of patience. Because I was doing fine, really, when they were smaller. It was hard, hard work, but I felt like we were all on the same team. Now it doesn't feel quite so much like that. She's banging her head on things and needing my attention and I want to give it to her, and play with both of them, not fight stupid battles over sippy cups and onesie poppers. It's hard to be patient and I'm having a hard time getting used to the fact that right now I am that parent with that child making that noise in a public place. That's not how I like to think of myself. It seems this is yet another lesson for me in dealing with my pride. I know that God's grace is sufficient, but I want to be sufficient, and instead all I do is fail fail fail.

And yet. They are both crawling at about the same speed, so they often chase each other around the house, at a hilariously slow pace, giggling until their whole bodies shake. Their hair is growing, and they now have the most astonishing spirally curls. I never thought two human beings could be so beautiful. They are learning, learning, learning. They seem to have mastered their first abstract concept - they have started waving goodbye when someone leaves, without any 'wave' prompts. They sleep on their tummies, with their bottoms pointing heavenwards. His babbling has changed so that he now sounds like he is having a real conversation, with modulated pitch and pauses. She ate her first spider. They continue to worship the cat. They are both absolutely crazy about pancakes; if I let them have pancakes at every meal they would surely explode. When I stand, they pull themselves up, one on each of my legs, bounce dramatically and shout at the top of their lungs, like noisy happy barnacles.

It is the worst of times. It is the best of times.