Image: Jenny Susanto-Lee
And so we are ensconced in our big new place. The packing boxes have all been flattened, the windows scrubbed and the cat can now venture outside without freaking out. Jordy’s new catch-cry is “Mummy, where are youuuuu?” and I get a real buzz calling back “By the lemon tree, darling heart” or “Just dead-heading the rose bushes, sweetness”. We’re very happy now. But the nights are not so hot..
When Darkness Falls
I guess an active fear of the dark had to happen some time. And as Jordy’s new bedroom is about three times the width and height of his old one, it’s fair enough too. There was a tickle of foreboding on the first day when he flatly refused to go down for a nap, but I put it down to the excitement of wanting to watch a really big truck unloading all our worldly possessions and let it pass. That night, though, it began as soon as his bedside lamp went off. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in that 0.1 second before the light hurriedly went back on again and, two weeks later, it’s still on. I tried a night-light, but the batteries went flat at 2:30am, resulting in the greatest hullabaloo. I tried a really cool stuffed toy that glowed, with light crystals that shined strategically around his room but, come bedtime, they were all booted out and as a result we have a running store credit with Toys R Us. Not that I blame him. How a two year old is supposed to be able to locate and squeeze a toy’s right paw, in the direction of some crystals, in the pitch black, in the middle of the night, I really don’t know. Anyway, now we are onto a touch lamp, which I tap down and he taps back up. My heart also stops on a regular basis as I’m startled awake by a small figure standing by my side of the bed in the gloom, trying to convince me that 1:20am is the new 7am and that the sun’s got it all wrong. So yes, all in all, nights are pretty hit and miss at the moment, but like everything else, we’ll get there.
Bedtime Buddies
When Jordy was six weeks old, his first smile wasn’t reserved for his doting parents but for a small, stuffed bunny from Marks & Spencer that lived in his cradle. He still loves that bunny but, somewhere along the way, he decided bunny was a bit lonely and needed some mates. So a teddy bear and various Night Garden characters came to live in his bed too. Now he’s decided they need an array of reading material, a warm blanket, a drink of water and a ticking clock that periodically crashes to the floor during the night. I’ve also tried to tell him that the three pillows he absolutely insists on sleeping with each night are a little over-the-top in a converted Ikea cot, but he will not be moved. I saw the cat sleeping in there the other day, and suspect she will soon be the next must-have night-time accessory. When will it end?!
A Public Nuisance
Our latest bug-bear is Jordy acting up when we’re out and about. What makes it all the more troubling is that we don’t know whether it’s us or him. Is he still settling into the new house? Is it tiredness from the broken sleeps? Are we too lax with him? Too tough? Or is he just well on his way to becoming a typical ‘threenager’ (he turns three in May). We can barely shop with him anymore because as soon as his feet hit the floor, he bolts. Our local Freedom store was the latest casualty. The little chat we had before entering about staying with Mummy and not touching anything went by the wall as he leapt for the nearest micro-fibre lounge suite and began bouncing energetically all over it before grabbing a handful of ornamental knick-knacks on a teak coffee table and yelling gleefully “No touch! No touch!”. The bemused look on the staff faces told me he’d been branded with that label all respectable parents dread: a little monster. I wanted to tell them how sweet he was normally, how much he adored snuggles before bed, how wonderful he was with babies and small animals. But I could see their point – he looked like a brat to me, too, and I was his mother. So I grabbed this new, strange monster-child and ran for the nearest exit.
