When Parenting Becomes Risk Assessment

 

It seems, in the last three months, I have stopped being a mother.

Not fully, I still have two children and I am definitely still 100 per cent mother to Boo. With G though, while I am still mummy in the traditional sense-loving and caring for him, I have become so, much more.

I say no so many times in the day. When he puts something in his mouth that he shouldn’t. When he climbs on something he is likely to fall from.

He is such a good little boy but he is fearless and fearlessness in the under 2’s is fear in droves for me.

If we go to the supermarket-even in the trolley seats which have ties, he manages to wriggle out. I have found for those emergencies when you have to physically go to the supermarket rather than have it delivered-you know for milk, bread or wine, a book will keep him in the seat for two aisles.

I pray that they have samples at the deli counter. Those broken up biscuits or cubes of cheese will keep him in the seat for two more aisles-four of I send Boo back for another sample for him.

He has been walking for a while now but if he sees the nappy for a pit stop or the sleeping bag for night time, he literally runs away. He also thinks it is hilarious to run away when he has something in his mouth which he shouldn’t-like a stone from the garden or a die which hasn’t been put away from one of Boo’s boardgames.

Thankfully in the house there are not many places to hide but there are walls and it seems my little tinker builds up such a speed that walls a regularly the thing to stop him in his tracks because he hurtles straight into them.

We moved the footstool to our lovely wing-backed chair because he climbed it and didn’t have the sense to climb off the normal way. I have found him head first in the corner on a few occasions before the stool was removed.

I bought the two of them a little table and chairs from Ikea, envisioning crayoning and playdoh sessions. Not only would G eat said crayons but he was regularly using the little chairs as step-ups to the table and dancing on the table, thinking he was the funniest baby in the world. He is the funniest baby in the world but not when dancing in front of patio doors and giving his mummy a heart attack.

I hate saying boys are so different from girls but in my case, they really have been. Whereas Boo would and still does like to sit quietly playing with toys, G is only happy zooming up and down the living room with one foot on a toy tractor, one on a baby walker and with a remote control in each hand.

I am not complaining. He is amazing. Whereas Boo can leave me mentally exhausted, with G it is physical but he is delightful and there is no need for television in our house when G is around because he provides all of the entertainment anyone could need.

I am going to add risk assessment management to my CV now though. I have gained so much experience in it over the last 15 months, I could write a manual.