mr wrigglebot

I thought somehow (like most mothers do I think) that my little Wrigglebot was the most perfect little boy; he never had tantrums, never cried for no reason, I thought I would escape the ‘terrible twos’. I have discovered that I was sadly mistaken. He is only 14 months and he is already becoming rebellious. Today he repeatedly  turned the stereo on and off despite numerous ‘No’s’ and little smacks. In the end he would quickly turn it on and off and then run away before I could get him. He is devious. Although I must mention that he is very cute even when he is being devious.

He is also starting to play with blocks, building towers mostly. He gets such a sense of satisfaction just from three blocks on top of each other. But… if they don’t stack and fall then after a while he gets so frustrated that he throws the blocks away in annoyance. Food not on time = not a happy boy either. Oh well, theoretically, if this stage starts now it should be over sooner, that’s my desperate hope anyway.

I think that I need a hobby, some worthwhile way to spend my time. Wrigglebot is becoming more and more independent and needs slightly less supervision provided the house is in a fit, baby proof state and so I may be at the point where I can tackle something else. My eyes no longer have to be glued to him all the time but there does have to be some boundaries to this hobby:

1. It has to be easily dismantable,
2. It needs to be able to be done in small segments of time,
3. I need to be able to do it at home,
4. It needs to inspire me,
5. It can’t involve food, Wrigglebot wont leave me alone if it does,
6. It shouldn’t be very crafty as I am not,
7. It shouldn’t be expensive (if it can earn me money all the better),
8. It can’t be physical, (I just happened to look down at my belly),
9. It needs to give me a sense of achievement,
10. It needs to be Wrigglebot friendly, ie. he shouldn’t be able to swallow it or squash it or anything like that.

So… any suggestions? Please leave them and I will peruse as I contemplate my future greatness in this chosen hobby.

After being around only Wrigglebot all day when Husband comes home I am ready to talk. And so I talk. I talk about what Wrigglebot ate, how many times I had to change his nappy, what telemarketers called and the weather, pretty much I talk about my day. I glance over at Husband and his eyes are glazed over, he isn’t hearing anything and then I realise, I am not even all that interested in what I am saying, in fact I am quite bored, my days are very similar and yet still I just want to talk. The other day I was in hysterics at how mundane my conversation was and yet there was nothing I could add to it to make it more interesting.

It isn’t that I find my life boring but when it’s broken down and put into words it definitely isn’t a Steven King page turner. And so for now I just live vicariously through Husband and plead with him to share all of the minute details of his day which in contrast to mine are fascinating.

Wrigglebot is grumpy. He has another tooth coming through that is frustrating him. The biggest problem is that he wants to eat but it seems to hurt when he does and so he whinges and whinges and picks up whatever crumbs he can off the floor. On the up side he is starting to walk, depending on his mood he can do up to 11 steps at the moment. I’m pretty happy he is finally starting to walk because I was getting sick of people asking about it and then quickly saying, ‘Don’t worry, they all develop at their own pace, the worst thing you can do is compare them to others.’ This is always followed by anecdotes of other children, this sentiment certainly isn’t wrong or malicious it just gets annoying once I have heard it for the fifteenth time. So I am glad he is beginning to walk and now hopefully I wont have to lift him and carry him so much.

Wrigglebot is now officially no longer a baby, he is  a little boy.  You ask me how I can tell, I can tell from his vomit.  No longer is it milky and unoffensive now it is chunky and carrot filled. Wrigglebot was sick last night and threw up all over his bed and because I was out he went on to throw up all over Husband, it was definitely big boy vomit. Thus I received an urgent SOS call and quickly came home to find a cot full of vomit and a floor with tracks of vomit all over it.  Not very pleasant but at least it wasn’t on me!

I always wondered how mothers were able to clean up vomit without throwing up themselves or making a huge deal of it and I guess I realised last night that you just do what you have to do. I felt a lot worse for little Wrigglebot being sick than for myself having to clean it up and I guess that is what mothers do, they care for their children and develop the amazing super power of being able to block out smells as they accomplish their necessary tasks.

Sometimes I am glad that the weekend is over and I am back into my normal weekly routine, today is one of those times. We needed to paint our house because the pink walls were constantly tormenting us and so Husband had the idea to paint the entire house in one weekend. Although this seems like a good idea when you are about six months pregnant and also have a one year old the idea of having wet paint throughout an entire house is a little daunting and overwhelming. Nevertheless the plan went ahead with the help of family and friends and I must admit that by dinner time Sunday the entire house was painted and back to normal (minus the pink walls).

And so  here I am Monday morning looking at my beautiful walls glad it is done but completely exhausted. We ended up finding it too difficult to keep Wrigglebot contained to just one room when there was all the commotion in the rest of the house so we called in the grandmothers and they took him off our hands for a while which was great. Anyways it is all done and I am going to go and have a nap.

As a child I had a hero, Lisa Curry Kenny. She was an Olympic swimmer and I was sure that that was what I was going to be when I grew up. Well Lisa ended up as the face of Uncle Toby’s muesli bars and I never quite made it to that Olympic pool. Now it seems as if Wrigglebot is already putting some people/ characters on hero status and as a parent it is beginning to make me quite concerned.

His current hero is the very hungry caterpillar (you know in that book where he eats through all that food and eventually turns into a butterfly). The book is his favourite and he will pore over it at length, examining each page and all the food. If I pick up the book he starts kicking his legs and giggling in anticipation. We wondered for a while why this book had captured his attention so and then we figured it out, it is all about a caterpillar eating a lot of food and getting fat. It is as if Wrigglebot has decided to emulate his hero the caterpillar and so he eats and eats and eats and waits for the day when he will turn into a beautiful butterfly and be able to fly because every boy wants to be able to fly and the idea that you  can eat to gain flight status is simply a dream come true to my little fat Wrigglebot.

Wrigglebot is communicating more each day. At first it was really cute he would point and say ‘Uugh, uugh,’ which sounds like a little repetitive grunting noise and then we would have to go and investigate what he was pointing at. This is all good except when it happens just about every five seconds and the response from any stimulating comments of mine is ‘Uugh, uugh.’ He can say some words like mum and dad and bir, which can mean bird or ball.

I guess I am just looking forward to when he can talk fluently and discuss current events with me. He doesn’t have to hold my opinions he just needs to be able to converse intelligently. Not that I am putting much pressure on him or anything, I mean he can’t even say ‘I want to get out of bed’ yet. For him he does well with cries and grunts although I just want to be able to talk with my little boy.

However, if he could talk now I am not so sure that I would want to listen as I have a small hunch that every second word would be ‘food’ and every other word ‘hungry’ or ‘eat’.