Light at the end of the toddler
NS October 3rd, 2009
I’ve written before about how difficult I’ve found The Noble Child at times: her tantrums, our bad days, my exasperation. I’ve also written about the good times: her sweetness, our funny moments and the goofy ways we diffuse the tension.
I love her unreservedly and unconditionally. She makes me laugh ’til my sides hurt sometimes and there is never a dull moment around her.
But if I’m honest, I’ve found the toddler stage, overall, very difficult. From 18 months onwards, TNC has been a full-steam-ahead, non-stop whirling dirvish of mishievous, independence-asserting, strong-willed spiritedness (or other nice ways of saying, “She’s a real handful”) that at times has brought me to the lowest lows I’ve ever known. In the last two years I have found myself slumped on the floor in total defeat, tears streaming down my face and my body wracked with great, gulping big sobs, sure that I couldn’t ever get up again, sure that I was not cut out for motherhood and that she’d be better off without me.
I’ve seethed with a rage that made my entire body shake, my teeth grind uncontrollably and my fist or foot lash out at or thrown some inanimate object that bore the brunt of my outburst, and then beat myself up with guilt.
I’ve sat in my GP’s office telling him of my problems with anger, feeling like I should be whispering in the confessional booth at church, shrouded in secrecy and fingering a rosary that I hope will grant me forgiveness.
Hail Mary, full of grace…
I’ve not felt full of grace in quite awhile, frankly. Some days, I’m happy with having simply survived.
But now, she is three-and-a-half. She is going to pre-school four mornings a week; the other day she spends with her grandmother. She can grasp the concept of having to wait for something, and of sharing. I can have very lengthy conversations with her now, about all sorts of things. She can dress herself, pour herself a drink of juice, pick her brother up to move him out of harm’s way, open her own snacks and recite books completely from memory. She is making friends everywhere she goes and just today while out shopping on the high street, she ran into three of them — one from pre-school and two from ballet and tap class. She, very endearingly, insists on doing things “By on my own” or “All on myself” and does just that.
She is no longer a toddler but a pre-schooler. She is shrugging off her baby days once and for all and entering the next stage of childhood, in all its wonder-filled, song-and-dance glory.
For her, a bright light is shining down and illuminating all of the things she yearns to touch, smell, see, taste and explore. The world is her oyster and she’s got her clam-diggin’ boots on, determined to find and polish every pearl she can get her increasingly dexterous fingers on.
For me, there is light at the end of the tunnel that I’ve found myself in for the past couple years. I am so close to the edge I can almost see the ground beneath the drop-off point. The funny thing is, I’ve been looking forward to this — no, begging for this — for so long that I couldn’t actually fathom the time actually coming. And now that it’s fast approaching and I am clambering out of the end, all I want to do is crawl back inside to that tiny tot back at the beginning and hold her close to me; smell her baby smell and hear her baby words and see her baby steps.
My whirling dirvish, I never meant to wish the wind out of your sails. I know your fiercely independent, fighting spirit will serve you well in life, as it has mine. You have a fantastic personality and are a character of fascinating, epic proportions.
But if you ever find yourself in a tunnel of darkness from which you can’t seem to find your way out, remember that I’m there behind you (fumbling, perhaps, but there) every step of the way… and I won’t stop nudging you forward until you’ve seen the light at the end, just as you did for me.
