Transitions and Toddlers



Will has been hurdling so many new milestones each time I turn around, I have to scribble them down lest this season pass me by.

Forgive me for just completely indulging my obnoxious-proud-mama emotions this once. 

Latest annoyance: drowning me out when I've been on the phone past my allotted time. He pads around behind me, hollering at the top of his lungs, until neither he nor I can hear ourselves.

Latest challenge: short-fuse of a temper growing shorter by the hour. I have been turning to desperate measures to placate him when a tantrum is brewing.

Behold my attempts in the long and arduous checkout line at Trader Joe's:



[Thank you, Marc Jacobs.]

Latest comic relief: passing out in public.



[he is totally sleeping.]

Latest sweetness: grasping my neck all the way around with his soft arms in a bear hug when I pick him up.

Latest precociousness: I spent a morning teaching him to knock on the door when he accidentally shuts himself in a closet or bedroom, instead of getting scared and screaming. 
That same afternoon, when he was angrily refusing a nap, and I was determinedly making him stay in his crib, I suddenly heard his wailing stop, and, 
as if a lightbulb had gone off in his little head, 
loud, insistent knocking came through the wall.

[ I couldn't keep him in there after that. Cuteness like that deserves hugs and kisses. ]

I was talking to my friend Catherine, (who made me ridiculously happy by coming up here for a girl's weekend for which I was oh-so-starved), all about the joys and tribulations of being a mother. 
I have come to the decision that the hardest seasons, or stages, 
of your experience of motherhood with each individual child,
 are the "in-between" ones ... 
the transition periods where your child is leaving behind one stage and trying to land into the next. 
Newborn to baby (those first 6 weeks were the most exhausting and emotional of my life!)... 
baby to crawling baby...
toothless baby to painful teething...
crawler to independent walker and (oh the terror!) climber...
baby-baby to toddler... 
and, as I have seen in my 5 younger siblings, all the stage transitions that follow...
toddler to child... child to teen... teen to adult... 
Etcetera.

Baby to toddler is pretty challenging. Cute. Hilarious. And challenging.

But its almost a relief to realize that the vague feeling of "hardship" that I have been experiencing
is the challenge of just trying to help Mr Baby adjust to being Mr Toddler. And once that adjustment period is passed, we'll be in a new, peaceful season once again. 

Until the next transition stage :).

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