PHASES
Are they real? Or is just what healthcare professionals and other parents tell you to make you feel better/not share with you the torment they feel that little Noah hasn’t really ever stopped playing with himself in public?!
In my year and a half of parenting there are definitely things that my son has stopped doing, and other things that he still does, and I swear sometimes he just does it to annoy us... *sarcastic/serious face*
I don’t even think I can recall the things he did that he no longer does. As with anything, you move on from one thing to the next so quickly as a parent that even successes are forgotten about as you start to deal with a new challenge the next day.
What I can remember though, are the things he STILL does that I have either a) learnt to live with and pick my battles in trying to teach him consequences or b) drive me insane.
These are as follows-
- Throwing his food. I swear he ate more at 14 months old than he sometimes does now. On a good day he’ll pass you the bowl or plate when he’s finished asking for ‘MAAAH’ (his version of ‘more’). But sometimes, and I am pleased to say this is decreasing, he still throws it to the floor. And it can still be full of Weetabix. And for someone like me who loves a sheepskin rug, Weetabix does not go down well. Where am I going wrong? I don’t acknowledge it now, I figured reacting to it was making him enjoy doing it more! I swear he gets a kick out of me having to scrub Weetabix off the floor…
- Opening the oven. He is so clever and knows when things are hot and says ‘Ooh hot’ and blows on his fingers (it’s the cutest thing) yet he still sometimes runs into the kitchen and tries to open the oven. Despite the warnings, the tears, the tantrums (coming from his dads!) he will still watch if we’re looking and go to open it.
- Finding ‘himself’. “Oh it happens to all boys” is what I hear all the time… but for over 6 months now he is obsessed with grabbing it the minute his nappy is off, and even pulling 'it' out in the night through his nappy... We’ve woken up many a morning to a wet toddler and a wet bed. Morning baths are fun… the washing every day, is not!
I am confident he’ll stop throwing his food and opening the oven in time. As for having his hands down his pants… don’t all guys just do that for the rest of their lives?