7 things no one tells you about raising a tiny tot

Monday, January 23, 2012

THEY'RE cute when they're new to the world, and everyone with a heart gets all mushy and sentimental around the bundles of chubby cheeks and gurgles that babies come with. But the cuteness usually stops when they start talking and arguing back at you — around the time when you can see their personalities shine through, and then you realise why no one ever gushes over a toddler-turning-big-kid.

No one tells you, when you're yearning for your own bundle, that they grow up, and that the world of parenting gets murkier the older they get. No one prepares you for the supermarket tantrums, the feisty backchats — no one really prepares you for when your bouncing baby transforms.

Here parents share seven of the things they experienced as their kids made the transition from baby to the kindergarten years.

1 You'll wonder how you birthed this monster. "Before I got pregnant I always used to roll my eyes and silently curse parents who couldn't control their kids in public. I'd say, 'my child will know by one look that I'm serious, and would never misbehave in public'," 33-year-old Andrea Clunis said. "That's until I had Harvey, my two-year-old. Let's just say supermarket visits involve him sitting by the Kisko stand screaming, him throwing himself down on the floor when I'm shopping, and being generally rambunctious. No look helps, no promises for a whipping later helps. The only thing that stops him is me giving him what he wants."

2 You'll learn the art of bribery. "I now find myself watching Mermadia as frequently as my little girl asks, as it's what I use to barter with her in exchange for her eating her vegetables," Marcia Dunkley, 30, said. "I would never have imagined that I'd be bartering with a two-and-a-half-year-old, but you do what you have to do to get the results you want. So, on any given weekday, you'll see me on the couch feigning interest in Barbie, while my kid eats her carrots and tomatoes."

3 You learn that sometimes you have to let things be. "I always imagined that I'd be a mom who would be strict on hygiene and discipline," 28-year-old Sophia Matthews said. "But with three-year-old twin girls, I've learnt to say to hell with it. My theory: if if doesn't kill them or make them sick, hooray for me. They're on the dirty floor, they eat food that has fallen on the floor, and I hope my mother-in-law doesn't read this, but they drink bag juice and eat cheese trix, because I don't have the willpower to fight off the peer pressure they get at kindergarten to eat the sugar and 'bad' stuff."

4 You'll share a bed for ages. "I bought bunk beds when my boys turned two and were going through potty training," 40-year-old Hannah Johnson said. "But they're now four, and still sleep with me, bribing me with the 'monsters' story. One of them told me that they'll stop when they're seven. I know the experts say that co-sleeping is unhealthy, but I'm sure the experts don't have a pair of four-year-old boys wailing like they're being murdered every time they try to get them to sleep alone. So I have given up. We can all fit in my bed anyway."

5 The chatting doesn't stop. "It's like living with a parrot 24/7," Mikhalia Banton said of life with three-year-old Meaghan. "I actually remember getting worried when she was almost a year old and wasn't talking. I used to actually pray for the day when we could have conversations! Well, God answered my prayers, and more. Meaghan goes on and on, like she's battery operated. The 'Whys' the 'Hows', it's like she's rewriting the dictionary and I'm her source of information. Even in sleep her voice reverberates in my head!" And if that wasn't enough, she said, Meaghan chooses to remember all the bad songs and expressions and blurt them out at inappropriate moments. "So I'll get a 'sh--' when she's frustrated in the car, or a 'Jesus Christ' in church, and I have to hang my head in shame," Banton said.

6 You'll become an expert at multitasking. "I know why I'm good at my job, it's because I've mastered the art of multitasking at home with five-year-old Madison," Leonora Blake, 37 said. Nowadays I can zoom through work before my eight hours are complete, and everyone has been commenting on how organised I am. Reason? At home I'm making breakfast and packing lunch while ordering her to get dressed for school. I'm combing her hair while ensuring that she eats breakfast, and I'm doing spelling practice with her in the car while negotiating traffic and applying my make-up. In the evenings I'm cleaning house while cooking dinner while helping with homework, all the while giving the appropriate responses to life's-most-pressing questions-according-to-Maddie. Children make you masters at multitasking!"

7 You'll wonder where your life went. "It happened when I was dressing up like a Spanish Conquistador for cultural day at my son's school — the lightbulb moment that my college friends would die if they saw me now," Lisa Campbell, 33, said. "I've given up stilettos for Crocs and I'm always in jeans now, because they can survive anything. I'll slap on some makeup just to look awake, and my hair's combed just so I look presentable. But life is fully centred on Matthew. I wonder sometimes where I would be if I didn't have him — four years ago I was certainly travelling the world and having fun. But today it's a different kind of fun — the kind that has me sitting through hours of four-year-old stuff that he's involved in."

— Petulia Clarke

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7 things no one tells you about raising a tiny tot