In the week that Seb said his first word (cat) and Polly livened up a dinner time by asking me to smell her fart I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the things we expect from our little people. More so about what society thinks about our little people, so here it is- my guide on what our babies and toddlers should be doing…

• Sleep through the night. Yup the big one. As soon as that baby enters the world, the whole world has an opinion on when they should ‘sleep through’ (I use this phrase lightly as everyone also has different ideas on how many hours this means- 5 hours, 12 hours, no one actually seems to know) all I do know is society seems to think it should happen immediately, oh and I also know that babies don’t sleep and so before anyone asks- no Seb has never ‘slept through’.
• Go to sleep without fuss. Another big sleep topic is how much intervention we should give to get that magical sleep. Society seems to tell you that they should ‘self-soothe’ which seems like some class A bullshit to me as most adults can’t do this. As adults we might cuddle a partner, snuggle up in a comfy blanket, fall asleep while binge watching something on Netflix yet, a newborn baby is expected to lie down and fall asleep quickly with no comfort or effort least it cause us an inconvenience.
• Eat all healthy food. Shock horror both my children eat chocolate, cakes, clotted cream and Polly has a weekly bowl of ice cream at Nanny & Pops’. Don’t get me wrong they do also eat healthy food, Seb’s favourite food right now is peas, but society says that’s all they should be eating even though we as adults have a horrendous idea of diet that has led to an obesity crisis. Everything in moderation is surely a better approach than a blanket ban on anything with a hint of sugar?
• No crying. Anywhere. In public. In restaurants. At the shop. At home. Anywhere. The looks you get from strangers these days if your little person even so much as sniffles tells you that society has a serious problem with crying children.
• Must share all toys and food with complete strangers on demand. This one is a tricky thing as yes kids need to learn to share but society expects them to do it on demand without warning and with no explanation other than- ‘you need to learn’. When you flip it round for us bigger people it doesn’t sound quite right though, I mean if I walked up to your table in the restaurant had a sip of your drink and took your phone of you for a browse you’d be pretty pissed off but if my 2 year old pinches someone else’s sippy cup and five minutes later that someone else pinches the crayon she’s using we have to brush all of it aside and say ‘they need to learn to share’.
• Be potty trained as soon as they can walk. Polly is 3 in June, she’s not potty trained. However since she was about 18 months old I’ve probably been asked about 687 times when I’m going to potty train her. The answer- when she is ready. I’m not sure why random strangers think my toddlers toilet habits are any of their business (I mean I don’t ask people in the queue at Tesco whether they use Tena lady) but the gist I get is that I should have got her out of nappies a while ago- it’s a good job I don’t listen to society.
• Give people hugs and kisses on demand, even if they don’t know who they are. I’m not going into detail about how messed up this concept really is when you actually think about it, just be prepared that I will not force my kids to do anything like this just to make you happy as how the hell do I then teach them about consent in a few years time.
• Say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’ whenever asked to. I mean I am guilty of this a bit as we are really pushing please and thank you right now and I will get Polly to apologise when she makes a bad choice but I won’t force her to say ‘hello’ to people she doesn’t want to talk to, I mean as adults we don’t want to talk to everyone so why should a 2 year old.
• Learn to count, recite ABC’s etc as soon as they start talking. I think I’ve been asked these sorts of questions about 686 times since Polly started talking (good luck Seb you better start swatting up now). The answer- no she’s not. She counts occasionally and knows some of the alphabet but she has her whole life ahead of her to learn these things, right now she’s learning to play, have fun, socialise etc and they seem in serious danger of being pushed aside by a exam result obsessed society that seem to have forgotten that she’ll be learning all that stuff at school anyway and right now I’d rather read her a storybook than have her recite the letters in it.
• Stay away from all technology. This is another tricky one as there’s not much hiding from it (right now I’m writing this sat on my phone and Polly is sat next to me watching Jurassic park on the TV while playing with the house phone) but society seems to think little people shouldn’t be in a 10 meter radius of anything touch screen or their brains will fry- again I’m not sure what age they are allowed maybe within a 5 meter radius or even when they are allowed to shock horror touch an iPad. I mean the kids don’t have a crazy amount of screen time and don’t really have much to do with iPhones etc but they do have some contact with it as guess what- it’s everywhere! Surely this is another case of moderation?
• Like any present given to them at birthdays, Christmas etc, say ‘thank you’ and be grateful. I don’t think this needs much explaining but maybe as adults we should just ask ourselves- have we always stuck to this throughout our lives before getting offended that a toddler isn’t bouncing off the walls at the present they’ve just opened.
• Hit all their milestones when google dictates. I could write a whole post on this alone. Society seems to think they are dr google and people love to comment on your child’s ability whether they are doing some too quick or too late. The truth is- they all do this stuff at their own pace and in 20 years time at a job interview it’s not going to matter if your child crawled at 8 months or 14 months or if they never did but for some reason Karen in the post office is horrified that your 11 month old isn’t clapping yet.
• Use their imagination then stop being silly when we tell them to change. Again fairly self explanatory but also fairly annoying. If my 2 year wants to think that the car she’s playing with can fly then dam it she’s playing with a flying car.
• Try anything new (food, activities etc).
• Not need comfort as soon as they start walking and talking- no more dummy, breastfeeding, bottles etc. See the above rant about sleep comforting but to just add to it, society is horrified to see these things and random strangers like to mutter things when they see you attempt to comfort your child with anything other than your own presence.
• They must like everyone and be friends with everyone. No random person at the bus stop my 2 year old doesn’t want to be your friend just because we are waiting for the same bus.
• Must understand all world dangers immediately- roads, rivers, strangers (incidentally some strangers get a ‘hello’ and others are ‘dangerous’). So yes society I will use reins on my 2 year old as surprisingly she doesn’t fully understand the concept that if she runs in front of a car she may never run again.

I could probably go on and on but we just hit the good bit in the film (quote Polly- “naughty dinosaur”) and I feel like I could rant the rest of the day away. The simple thing is society has some funny ideas about how we should be parenting and in the smartphone age where the internet is ready to judge your actions at the drop of a hat, maybe we should just give a little less of a shit what people think and realise all these wonderful children and parents are different so screw you society I’m going back to watching a ‘scary’ film with my 2 year old whose wearing a nappy and has eaten several biscuits today while the baby plays on the floor not quoting Shakespeare but occasionally shouting ‘cat’ while pointing at the roaring dinosaurs.

Almost a month…. big oops! I think life has just been speeding away recently and so days melt into weeks and then you realise you haven’t blogged for nearly a month. It just seems a bit tricky sometimes to juggle it all to then find a half hour slot to write something when my brain is actually engaged and I’m not about to fall asleep in that moment of peace instead.

So what’s new? Well even though it’s been a while not a lot of big stuff has happened.

The weather has let us down this week with rain creeping back in and forcing us into a couple of house days- the house needs a bit of TLC though really, just little things like organising kids clothes and having a bit of a declutter. But as I watch the rain outside I’m struggling to believe we were sat on the beach last Friday afternoon. It was Seb’s first time actually on the beach and it was a lot of fun. Polly and I enjoyed a cheeky mr whippy with a flake (crafty sod serving us who asked the toddler whether we wanted that extra feature!) then we found a little patch of sand. Polly instantly started making sand angels and covered all 3 of us in sand and Seb instantly started eating handfuls of sand while squealing with delight. We even dipped our toes in the water.

Seb had his first year review last week, a bit of a tick box affair but the health visitor has confirmed what we knew, the boy isn’t moving around as much as he should be so we need to work on that and try a few tricks to get him going. She commented that he’s too focussed on the little detailed things like pushing cars and reading books so she tried forcing him to go and get the toy he’d been occupied with. She found out first hand that communication isn’t a problem for him as he simply pointed at her then at the toy she’d pushed out of his reach, silently demanding she bring it back!

Polly is of course just Polly. Full of her wild energy like usual. Her imagination is going to a whole new level at the moment, cushions on the floor become dragons for us to fly on, Santa calls her on the phone (actually the dvd remote) and asks her to go for a sleigh ride and of course the bathroom light became the man on the ceiling! Still slightly scared of my own bathroom after that one.

They do seem to be getting cheeky together though and scenes like this…

Are becoming quite common, when I turn my back for 2 minutes to dish up tea- she took a wrap off the side and the plates from the cupboard for a quick picnic with him as a starter. So most of the time they are getting on, except in Tesco on Tuesday when they pulled each other’s hair, screaming together while we went through the till.

My moment of peace seems over, Seb has woken from his nap and stick man has finished so I’ll check out again and I really won’t leave it that long again, I promise! But if I get a bit lax here’s a cute picture to finish on that might make up for my poor time keeping! This was the scene I left behind on Monday morning before my 7:30 start…