BEING A MOTHER - 9

Has anyone ever had an abusive lover, who pulls on hair, hits you with things, calls you names, from whom you can't take your eyes off for a second in the fright of something dangerous coming up? I would have sued him right away or kicked him out of my life with no guilt.

But when this abuse comes with a lot of unconditional pure love!?

Tiny fingers through the hair, giggles after the hitting, gibberish names with serious face that sound funny and taking eyes off the guy and he puts himself in danger.

Toddlerhood must be the hardest part of parenting. Their curiosity to try everything, I mean absolutely everything ; be it smearing the poop under the feet, feeling the texture of dog poop, trying the taste of dog food, putting those tiny fingers through the plug holes, tasting the walls, pouring water over various things (mostly the gadgets) and the most interesting thing trying your patience. When they see you going mad, they deliberately do things to push your limits. Language skills are inversely proportional to the curiosity, which makes things worse.

Meal times and bed times are like war scenes. You have to plan well in advance, plot the war scene tactfully and be ready to bare whatever the opponent comes with. Filling those little tummies is not difficult but feeding them healthy meals and pursuing them to try the rejected food without distracting their attention from food, is a work of patience. Same goes with sleeping. You can let them exhaust themselves to sleep or let them doze off in front of TV but to make them unwind and teach them to put themselves to sleep is an award winning game.

Okay, most of the time you love it, you find it rewarding but sometimes, just sometimes (in toddlerhood case the sometimes seems to come often) you want to run away, put your head under the pillow and scream or sit in the toilet and cry. All you want is a break but this stage is so consuming that you have already lost your life to it. Hardly any outing alone, and those with the baby are majorly spent bodyguarding him rather than socializing. Your meals are most of the time the leftovers of the toddler or are with plate in one hand, other hand holding onto his arm trying to stop him from jumping into the drawer in the kitchen which you are pushing to keep it tightly closed with one of your foots. Showers and other washroom jobs are of course with them, yelling at them to not squeeze any bottle or pursuing them to put the broom back in place worst being pulling them out of the bucket while halfway through your job. Sleep...!!! I better not describe it. Anyways it hardly happens.

Love and care are for a mother of a baby but sympathy, empathy and a massive amount of respect is what a mother of a toddler deserves.

So the next time you see a toddler mother, don't judge her by what she let's her monster do or how her little abusive lover behaves but pat her back or just hug her and tell her that this stage will pass too as the adorable baby stage did.