YO MAMA: A pivotal parenting lesson
OPINION
“Almost there,” said a tired voice behind me.
It was a dad and his two young children. Like me, he was on his way to our town’s early childhood learning program for kids aged 0-5. He was pushing the younger one, an infant, in a stroller, while the older one dawdled behind.
Those two little words resonated with me. Sometimes, it felt like getting out of the house took FOREVER. Then, when you got to wherever you were going, navigating that final stretch of the parking lot was like dragging a wounded soldier through no man’s land.
We got to the door and I held it open for our rag-tag squad.
“We made it,” I said, to which the dad grinned knowingly, as if we were secret allies. We walked in and unloaded our cargo in the too-small cubbies, just in time for the group to line up for gym. That meant we had just missed show’n’share and I hoped my little guy wouldn’t notice.
We would now walk — or crawl, depending on the age of your little one — to the gymnasium for “free play.”
Free play meant there was no organized activity. Kids could get their free-time fill from the menu of toys on offer for around 15 minutes.
Some kids liked to simply run like mad around the gym. Others headed straight to a giant blue gym mats and rolled around on it like a bunch of over-stimulated puppies.
For my kid, it was all about the Little Tikes cars. He waited like an emaciated lion at feeding time for them to be brought out from the mystical equipment room by the teacher. Then I would push him around for most of the free play time.
Some of the moms had figured out a really ingenious method of looping a skipping rope around the wheel so they didn’t have to bend over to push, which after a while made your back hurt like hell. My kid, however, wouldn’t permit me to use the rope. He would whine and then scream until I gave up and started pushing him from behind.
It always made me feel a bit used and manipulated until he started making adorable car chase noises and I forgave him instantly.
I’d done a few loops around the gym when my kid suddenly started pointing at the equipment room. The door was wide open and unknown treasures glittered inside. The teacher was out of sight somewhere.
It could be an invitation. Or it could be a test. The door was normally shut. There was no “staff only” sign. Could we help ourselves if the door was open, or was it a no-go zone? As I turned these questions over in my mind, the kid was already off his car and running towards the door at break-neck speed.
Operation Infiltrate Equipment Room was in motion.
I was so happy to give my back a rest that I didn’t protest. It is moments of weakness like this that get you into trouble.
My eyes scanned the room and saw all kinds of things that would appeal to the kid and be a real pain in the derriere for me to deal with. He settled on a pool noodle. An innocent pool noodle. What a relief, or so I thought.
It wasn’t long before the other boys noticed the noodle and wanted one too. Children are like wealthy snobs at an auction, they all want the shiny object on display and they simply have to have it.
Which is how, suddenly, a bunch of toddlers were running around with pool noodles when the teacher walked back in.
“Ummm, is it OK if they play with the pool noodles?” I asked sheepishly.
The teacher paused for what seemed like an age. She was clearly assessing the situation.
“As long as you’re prepared to supervise them,” she said.
Crap. Now I was responsible for the hooligans. But they were just pool noodles. Soft, spongy, pool noodles. The kids would probably forget about them soon enough.
That is not what happened.
What happened is that some sort of primal instinct took over and the boys — mine included — started waving the pool noodles around like samurai swords. There is nowhere my kid could have learned this, and yet, the movement was as natural to him as walking. The kids whacked the floor, they whacked the walls, they whacked their parents.
“Be gentle….” I trailed off, hopelessly ineffective.
It was quickly turning into bedlam. I was not a very good supervisor. I proposed a high-speed car ride in exchange for putting the noodle away — a classic bait and switch — and thankfully, the other parents stepped in with their own kids and pretty soon the noodles were safely sequestered away.
Later, at snack time, I noticed my son examining his carrot stick with new interest. He used it like a miniature hockey stick to prod a grape around. Had pandora's box been opened?
When I got home later that day and told my husband what happened, he mocked me mercilessly for my naivete.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.
He went on to tell me that little boys will use almost anything long and slender as a sword: rulers, ski poles, pencils, broom handles, spatulas and of course, sticks.
“Even my little boy?” I asked.
But I already knew the answer. I had seen it.
At least tomorrow, I would leave the house a little more prepared for my day on the frontlines.
— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.
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