The baby is no longer a baby. We have unlocked the “argghh, me feckin” couch’ level of parenting. There is a crust of masticated Liga and Sudocrem over absolutely everything in my house, my soul included.
“No” is the 16-month-old’s favourite word. She says it matter-of-factly, with a definitive shake of the head. She doesn’t care one bit that she’s leaving me, the one supposedly in charge, twisting in the wind.
Two weeks ago, we cheered as she took her first unaided steps. We took videos on our smartphones, hugged her and held her aloft as a Big Girl. Man, she looked chuffed with herself; so much so that she now takes every chance she can get to bolt out of the house. She gleefully runs down the street with not so much as a note of the Green Cross Code in her head. The neighbours chuckle as I run after her, yelling.
Why does no one tell you that, while you’re there applauding first steps like a guileless idiot, you’re simply celebrating the job spec getting a bit harder? I’ve spent the last fortnight chasing a two-foot Wreck-It Ralph around the house; a tireless exercise in damage limitation.
I haven’t had a non-microwaved cup of tea in weeks. Just today, I stopped my daughter choking on the sink plug after she popped it into her mouth like a dinner mint. Her idea of fun is pulling down a full clotheshorse onto herself. She won’t rest until she smashes up a cupboard full of dinner plates, Greek wedding-style. She will gleefully devour mud in the garden or lint on the stairs, but turn her nose up at a dinner made from scratch. She won’t let me hold her “like a baby” anymore (when was the very last time I got to do that? I don’t remember. It didn’t feel like it would be the last time). At least I can now add “changing the nappy on a running child” to my skill-set.
My partner and I retire at the end of each day, exhausted and adrenalised after a series of tiny disasters, but there’s fun to be had, too. The no-longer-a-baby reads to herself in baby gurgles. She’ll drop a spoon with a disingenuous “uh-oh”. She hugs every stuffed toy she meets as though they’re a long-lost relative. If she is bored in your company, she offers a dismissive wave and a polite “bye-bye”, like Simon Cowell.
Still, though. The couch.
When we brought our daughter home from the hospital and we were terrorised with a metronomic schedule of changing, feeding and burping, friends would put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “This is the hardest bit,” they noted. “It gets so much easier when they’re older.”
I’d take a look at my newborn’s scrunched up face – her entire newborn demeanour was pure “let me speak to your manager” – and I’d long for the “toddler” phase, when she would be saying daft, cute things and walking around with a bucket on her head.
Of course, now I ache for those newborn moments. The lightness of her body in my arms. The quietude. The helplessness. The total dependency. The barely there toenails. The scratchy mewling. At the time, all of those things terrified me. Now, I miss that stage terribly; even the bits that I thought were awful.
Recently, I bumped into a pal and his partner with their week-old son, on their first outdoors excursion. I peered into the pram and my ovaries started doing hula-hoops. The baby looked blissed out and peaceful, though there was something familiar in his parents’ slightly vacant stare, and their slow, tired gait. I’d almost forgotten about that side of things.
Nostalgia
Is it strange to want your little one to never grow up? To want to keep her small and portable, the cuteness and the baby gurgles suspended in aspic? Those with grown-up children go a little bit misty-eyed when I’m giving out about not getting to pee in peace. Amazingly, they are nostalgic for the place I’m at now, with its tantrums and its sticky Calpol film. I, in turn, can’t help but wish I was as close to the finish line as they are (there isn’t a finish line in parenting, is there? Oh god, just humour me for a second and say there is). I’m envious of their ability to go to the cinema whenever they like, and the fact that their children load dishwashers, as opposed to attempting to wreck the joint for no reason other than they fancy a bit of craic.
“Cherish every moment” is such a vile parenting cliché, and I’m loathe to use it, but I’m trying so hard to stay present. To soak up every detail and every emotion, from melting with cuteness to chewing my fist with frustration. I hold her bigger-than-before-but-still-small foot, and take in as much of her as I can. There will eventually come a day when I won’t ever pick her up again, or won’t change her nappy, or dress her, and the realisation makes me a bit queasy. On the upside, I might get my couch looking presentable again.
