Penni Drysdale - P Plate Parenting

People have often said, to my great, swelling pride, that my Big Boy will be a ‘heart breaker’ when he gets older. What can I say? He’s got my genes. Trouble is, the ‘heart breaker’ thing has begun already…

Yes, the girls at child care love him, but I don’t think he’s broken any hearts there yet – they seem quite happy to share the four year old love and craziness. It’s my heart he’s breaking, and not because of his big brown eyes, cheeky nature or strange kisses. It’s because I’m not only his mummy now. I have another boy who demands a lot of my time, attention and affection (oh, and there’s the baby too). I have been well and truly shoved to the outer since his baby brother arrived.

Everyone tells me it’s ‘normal’ and it probably is. Still, when your Big Boy brings home a drawing of his family, complete with him, dad and the baby…hang on, complete? Ah, there’s the small omission of your mother, son. Or when he tells me to stay home while he goes to the park with dad, because it’s my job to look after the baby and the house (note: he has always known me as a working mummy). Or when he delights in telling me that him and daddy are going to have blue plates for dinner and I’m going to have a brown plate. Or when he wants dad to tell him ‘all those things’ (our little bedtime routine thing of talking about what we’ve done that day), every night. And the most recent, another drawing. At least I was in this one. Everyone else was drawn in pink pencil and I was drawn in grey. His explanation? ‘You got burnt in the fire mum’.

I’m trying not to break down in tears anymore, or let myself completely lose the plot in anger and frustration. I compliment him on his wonderful drawings and state indifference to the different coloured plate. With the help of a brilliant, calm husband, a baby who smiles at me no matter what and a newly acquired family nurse, I will ride the heart break and look forward to the day when it’s another girl’s heart he’s shattering.

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Now the curtain is coming up, the entertainer is taking a bow. Does his dance step and sings a song….or something like that. My Big Boy is The Entertainer.

Sounds impressive, yes? Amusing? Perhaps even useful? Possibly, but the majority of the time it does my head in.
Reason 1: I am paranoid about the baby getting squished by his big brother, accidentally or not*. My son seems to have developed two left feet and lost his center of gravity over the last 6 months, leaving him susceptible to tripping, stumbling and crashing upon any attempt at functional movement. Add singing and ‘dancing’ (I fear he may have inherited his father’s awkward style) and the result is generally bruising and breakages. Now throw in a baby on the floor. Not good for my mental health.

Reason 2: I have developed my mother’s sensitivity to noise (acutally, it’s more of an intolerance, perhaps even an aversion).  Not great when you’re a mother to two young boys, so I may need to jam that into the Must Work On drawer of my Personality Traits filing cabinet. With entertainment comes lots of noise (because, along with the thumping of his Big Boy feet, his singing leaves a lot to be desired). So for musically trained ears and hypercritical and hypersensitive tendencies, it’s all just a bit much.

But despite the damage I incur to the delicate thread of sanity I have stowed away, the baby LOVES IT! He smiles with his entire face until his cheeks consume his eyes. He chuckles and coos, oblivious to the danger that crashes around him. While I’m gripping onto my trackie pants, white-knuckled, stifling screams of panic and over-stimulation, he follows his brother’s every move and provides my Big Boy with all the encouragement he needs to continue entertaining. So, for the sake of the greater good, The Entertainer will carry on performing, much to the delight of his biggest fan, a defenseless but happy little brother.

*To heighten my paranoia and take me back to square one in my attempt to overcome the beast, my Big Boy did attempt to squash the baby recently, but let’s talk about that another time, when I am seeing a lighter shade of red.

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