I can’t bear to make any new year’s resolutions this year. I lack all inclination to do so. I can’t tell whether my resignation is due to the world being in such disarray, or because living with a sixteen-month-old toddler means that I am consumed with trying to survive the now, managing his chaos from moment to moment.
When I greet him in the morning he nearly pokes me in the eye, eager to demonstrate that he can correctly identify my eyes. This is his newest trick. He points to eyes, noses, ears, mouths, chins and cheeks and attempts to say them all. With my eyes firmly closed, I nod encouragingly whilst carrying him in a defensive position, craning my face away from his animated fingers. “Well done darling, clever boy”.
After breakfast I have a series of chores to complete before we leave the house, but as I attempt to tidy up, my little mischief-maker accompanies me, balancing my efforts with a new trail of mess.
I put some books away in his bedroom cupboard, at the same time he pulls all his socks out of a drawer and scatters them across the floor. I hurriedly put the socks back where they were whilst restraining him and shepherd him into my bedroom. As I get dressed, he pulls laundry out of the laundry bag. As I make the bed, he unloads a bag I’ve packed for the charity shop. Whilst I tidy up all the mess, he messes up the newly-made bed. Exasperated I scoop him up and head downstairs. He finds an old oatcake on the dusty floor and attempts to eat it. I feel disgusted by our slovenliness; his findings are a constant reminder of my failures to clean up the previous day. I prize the oatcake from his grip whilst he screams, calmly explaining that we don’t eat dirty things, but that he can have a nice new clean oatcake. I give him a new one, and grab the dustpan and brush to sweep up the remains of the last. As I turn around I see that he’s dropped the new one on the floor and is squashing it with his foot. I tidy that up too. Whilst I load the washing machine, he unloads another drawer, puts a cable in his mouth and scrapes a bowl loudly across a wall. I daren’t look to see if it’s made a scratch. I spot the Chocolate and Coconut Liquor that I was given for Christmas. It’s 9am and I want to have a swig. I resist. It’s the second day of the new year and I must at least attempt to exert willpower. (I later cave in at 10.30am, justifying the indulgence as a midmorning snack).
I see that he’s found a little bowl from the kitchen and is carefully picking up dust and hair from the floor and putting the pieces into his bowl - he looks absorbed for a moment so I seize the chance to make some notes of his behaviour this morning. Ah, now he’s hitting my leg and clamouring for attention, so my moment for reflection is abruptly ended.
Over Christmas I read Rachel Cusk’s memoir of early motherhood, A Life’s Work. I pause to remember a brilliant passage summarising a baby manual by Penelope Leach. Cusk wrote:
Like Mary Poppins, like someone in a fairytale, she [Leach] is on the side of children. This baby is a person she crisply declares, scattering all before her. How would you like it if people just wanted you to go to sleep all the time and never talked to you? Or expected you to spend all night on your own in the dark? Or got angry when you cried and never wanted to play and kept moaning about wanting some time for themselves? Poor babies!
Stop willing him to go to sleep, I tell myself. Stop lusting after time alone. I embrace him and my time with him. There is much to celebrate when I devote myself to playing with him. He laughs alot. He has a wonderfully expressive face with twinkly eyes. He loves brushing his teeth and mimes brushing them with glee throughout the day, so when it’s time to use his real toothbrush he beams at me and BFG with wide eyes, open-mouthed in excited readiness. He’s so cute that sometimes I squeeze his thighs too hard in appreciation.
A funny thing about toddlers is how busy they look. They’re always consumed with what they’re doing - be it pushing a basket around a room, loading and unloading things from bags and boxes, pretending to talk on a toy phone - whilst doing nothing of any importance. This quality always makes me smile, but I struggle to feel superior because it strikes me as a genuine insight - a mirror of our own lives in microcosm. I feel busy all the time, but am I doing anything of any importance? It’s mostly a distraction from the really big stuff. Greenhouse gas emissions are rising, biodiversity is diminishing, wildlife is going extinct - everything else is noise. We’re all behaving like toddlers, emptying drawers and tipping up cups, causing havoc and failing to tidy our own mess - destroying our home. Only where are the adults coming to remedy things?