There’s plenty of myths we like to perpetuate about babies, like how helpless they are. And yes for the most part this is true, especially in those first few weeks. They are these wobbly little bundles of mushed up cuteness that need delicate care and help to do everything. But as I am quickly learning, once they get a little more robust, it’s as if their determined gene suddenly switches on, and I don’t think I’m going to see it turned off again in my life time!
I mean seriously, it constantly amazes me how iron-willed my 9 month old baby boy is! And whoever came up with the expression ‘like taking candy from a baby,’ clearly never actually met one, who has a steel grip on say my keys, when I’m 15 minutes late and have to get into the car and use the blasted the things to actually drive! Why is it at this precise moment that my baby’s determined streak decides to shows its face? And he will not for the life of him let go, because for some reason he just wants to continue to shove them into his mouth and eat them, never mind the fact that he could blind himself or probably pick up Ebola from the amount of germs on there. And when I actually do manage to wrestle them away from him, he goes to DEFCON four in the blink of an eye and we’ve a meltdown for the entire ensuing car journey. Toddlehood it seems is getting closer every day!
Apart from the steadfast resolve, I’m forever amazed by the sheer strength a baby has too. I mean on the surface the idea of talking something dangerous away from a baby, such as when he grabs a knife off the table or wants to put the dishwater tablets into his mouth, seems like a simple task. I’m the adult. He’s the baby. It’s a safe assumption that I’m bigger and it should therefore be easy to remove said object from his clutches. But often it’s not. The pure willpower combined with uncanny strength often make it a mammoth task which routinely ends in disaster. He grabbed my glasses off my face the other day and proceeded to rip one of the arms right off it as we battled for possession. He regularly reefs chunks of hair out of my head and gets so excited at times, he gives whoever is carrying him a left hook Rocky Balboa would be proud of.
The other day I had him on the floor on his tummy playing with his toys in the playpen we set up for him. It’s quite big and takes up literally the whole front room of our small house and it can be enclosed so he can’t really go anywhere he shouldn’t. So there I left him, while I hightailed it up the bathroom for what I thought was the worlds quickest pee. I was gone maybe 1 full minute, but when I dashed back down the stairs he’d pushed open the gate and was heading for the dogs full bowl of food. Of course, when I turned him around back to the playpen, he wriggled and fought for about 10 minutes to get back to what he was doing before he’d been so rudely interrupted my mummy.
I know these small things seem trivial to me, but clearly these are the most important things happening in his life at that moment and he doesn’t see why he can’t carry on doing it. You’ve got to just love their true grit. And let’s face it, if I had even a drop of the determination my baby boy has, then I would have finished my novel years ago!