Now we are two

Here we are: parents of a two year old. It doesn’t feel like a year since I wrote here about Ted turning one. But then, the last twelve months have been pretty unusual and time has become a fluid concept rather than a concrete fact (partially illustrated by the frequency of my blogposts of late).

This article consists of twelve more things I’ve learned on the long and winding road to “the terrible twos”.

1. Be child-led

It’s exhausting coming up with stuff to do to keep your toddler entertained. I spent half an hour painstakingly carving potatoes into stamps so we could play with paint, only for Ted to get bored after five minutes of trying to eat the potatoes and wandering off.

Our best parenting successes have been from following Ted’s lead. Admittedly, this has seen Maddy carrying him around the living room on her back like a horse while I read “The Highway Rat” as a dramatic monologue, but Ted loved it – and instigated it. Likewise, I’ve begun a series of stories called “George the Bee” about a lovable-but-clumsy bee named after one of Ted’s friends (guess who suggested the name). I ask Ted to fill in the gaps in stories: “What did Bilbo Baggins find in the cave?” “STRAWBEES”. “That’s right! A cave full of strawberries”. Let your kid lead.

2. Treat your kid like a human being

You don’t need to talk to children like they’re babies. You don’t even need to talk to babies like they’re babies. But really, this last year has taught me that kids are incredibly perceptive. They pick up so much of our language, actions and reactions. Ted could understand a huge amount of what we were saying, long before he could speak his own thoughts back to us. You don’t need to dumb down your speech for toddlers – don’t simplify your grammar, don’t use “baby words” or infantilising terms. Speak to them like you’d speak to another human being – they understand, and you’ll be amazed.

3. Books are the key

I can’t stress this enough: read to your kid. All the time. Every day. Until you can recite the stories by heart. Ted is perhaps spoilt in this regard with two English graduates for parents, but you don’t need any special skills. You just need to believe that when you spend time teaching your kid to enjoy stories, empathise with characters, copy sounds, learn words and understand songs and rhythm, amazing things happen.

4. Your home will be destroyed

Between 12 and 24 months your child is going to make leaps and bounds (literally). Unfortunately, these leaps are frequently going to start/finish on your favourite item of furniture or treasured keepsake. The bounds might involve your kid holding onto an open pot of yoghurt, or—if you’ve taken your eye off the ball—an entire bag of granola. Your carpets are going to gain a bespoke new covering of jam, milk and bodily fluids. Your walls are soon to be decorated with sticky handprints and muddy shoe prints. Your TV screen, windows and mirrors will never be streak-free again. Accept it now and move on (and buy a handheld vacuum cleaner).

5. TV is a superweapon

When you’re exhausted and out of energy, and your toddler is a whirling ball of demands and mood swings, you make eye contact with your partner and say “…shall we stick the TV on for a bit?”. The soothing tones of CBeebies fill the room and your miniature hurricane decides to momentarily pause ripping the stuffing out of one of his toys to watch Hey Duggee for a bit. Great! You’ve bought yourself 15 minutes of downtime to mindlessly scroll social media (or get the dinner on, if you’re resourceful enough). But this gift comes at a price. When you reach for the remote control and say “bye bye, TV”, you better be ready to reap the whirlwind of fury. And like all drugs, its effects become duller over time. Use this powerful intoxicant with care.

6. Learn to let go

Helicopters are great when used in 80s music videos or flying on other planets, but they’re rubbish at parenting. I saw a dad at the park a week ago run past me with such urgency to catch his (26 month old) daughter on a slide that I thought the play park had caught fire. We’ve all done it with our kids – we were at the park following Ted up some steps as a mum said knowingly “is he your first?”. She was standing on the ground half-watching her toddler—the same age as Ted—while keeping an eye on her 5 year old. I sheepishly backed off and watched him happily climb the stairs without me hovering behind him.

Your kid is going to fall off things and bump/bruise themselves. You can’t stop it and it won’t really help them if you tear after them whenever they break free. Learn to let go.

7. You don’t need those toys

If you’re more than 12 months into parenthood then you already know this. If you’ve been through a Christmas with a child then by now you probably have a bag/box full of discarded presents that your kid has grown bored of, broken, or never even opened. You might have told your family “we don’t need anything, honestly” and still received tons of well-meaning toys and games. This will keep happening until suddenly you find yourself running out of house.

Be firm. Put your foot down: insist nobody gets your kid anything this year. Push people towards personal gifts instead: for Ted’s 2nd birthday we asked family to record stories for him, which we’ve put on a portable speaker thing so he can play them whenever he wants. Everyone wins.

8. Put down your phone

This one is really hard. When you’ve been through months of lockdown, sometimes your mobile phone can feel like your only link to the “outside world”, whatever that was. When you feel isolated and exhausted, and your free time has dwindled to a couple of a post-bedtime hours before you’re too tired to watch TV any more, then it’s totally understandable that you’ll snatch a few minutes of screen time while the toddler is dragging at your legs and shouting “DAD! KITCHEN!”. But try to fight it. When my willpower is strong, I leave my phone in my bedroom after I finish work, and focus on spending meaningful time with Ted in the small number of hours I have with him before it’s his bedtime. You’ll thank yourself later.

9. Your kid has a life outside yours now

If your child has started nursery then they’ll have relationships and interactions that you’ll never see. This is quite a big thing to wrap your head around if they’ve never left your side in their first year: who are these people with my kid? And what’s my kid like with them?!

Other people are going to have an opinion on your child’s character that’s informed by things you won’t have seen. As much as you might have your own thoughts on what their personality is like, the things they love (or hate), it’s only part of the picture. And that’s fine! It’s your job to set them up for success so that whatever they choose to do when you’re not there, other people enjoy their company.

10. Your kid can be a dick

This has been difficult for us. We’ve had a couple of reports from nursery that Ted has bitten another child. These incidents always follow the same pattern: it’s when he’s been away from nursery for 4 or 5 days (and therefore not interacting with other kids), and when he’s particularly stressed and/or teething. The staff sit him down and explain to him that he can’t do this to his friends, and he apologises and hugs them. But the first time it happened I felt really weird about him: when I picked him up from nursery, it felt like something had changed: my little boy had upset another child.

This won’t be the last time my child makes me feel this way, and my reaction to it is just as important as Ted’s. But it’s a hallmark of your child growing up that they become capable of doing things you won’t like – and a difficult one to get used to.

11. It’s relentless

In some ways, this second year has been harder than the first. There’s less of the scary unknowns, my sleep is a lot better, and—pandemic aside—our quality of life is much better.

But on the other hand, a toddler is much more high-maintenance than a newborn. In those first few months you can basically plonk the baby down somewhere and let them do whatever: sleep, cry, roll around, etc. When they start crawling, you can put them in a crib or playpen and go and make a coffee.

When they’re walking, climbing, talking and DEMANDING, though: you don’t get a break. You can be midway through making the dinner when you hear the urgent voice of your child sounding like they’re seconds away from causing serious damage to something (including themselves), or worse, things get suspiciously quiet for far too long. Your child is chasing independence but just not quite ready to be given it – which means you’re constantly on alert mode, even when trying not to be. You’ll finish each day exhausted and drained. But hang in there, because…

12. It’s (still) the best thing ever

I love being a parent. My life beforehand feels empty and unremarkable. It’s not for everyone, of course, and there are plenty of downsides (see above).

But all of the difficulties pale into insignificance when I hear my son shout “Dad, read HOBBIT! Read BILBO BAGGINS!”, or when he giggles with pure, unbridled joy when I pretend to be a dragon and chase him around the house, or when he froze in silent wonder as we watched a goose on the canal calmly squeeze out a poo, before collapsing into uncontrollable mirth (Ted, not the goose).

We’re two years in and I’m just starting to understand what the “terrible twos” means, and getting an inkling of what we might have to come. But the second year has been even better than the first, and I’m super excited to see what the next one will be like. Onwards!