10 things about Cormac, aged 18mths

More in the series here.

Mine.

1. I enjoy least the times you poo in the bath, which are numerous. Your sister never once did that. We will love her more if this keeps going.
2. I enjoy least the times you cling to my legs and grizzle while I am trying to get things done around the house. I also enjoy least giving in and carrying you on one hip while attempting to get things done around the house.
3. I enjoy least that you are the type of toddler to wander off/climb over a railing/and run towards a moving car.
4. I enjoy least your precocious understanding of violence – biting, pinching, scratching, kicking, head-butting, hitting, gouging, hair-pulling.. honestly, for someone so sweet-natured, with pacifist parents, you have a shitty collection of tricks. Also, once again I am destined to be the mother ostracised from playdates for having ‘the biter’.
5. I enjoy least your destructive tendencies – the way you will climb on to my desk just so you can pick everything up off it and hurl it, including unpacking my handbag and throwing the contents are far as you can across the floor. The way you sign ‘break/broken’ in such a cavalier way when you break things. I also enjoy least the fact that this means if I have you out at the shops I have to be either carrying you or keeping you strapped in a stroller, when actually, walking about is what you want and need to tire you.
6. I enjoy least that you take so long to fall asleep at night at the moment – we often spend almost an hour lying together on the bed before you finally fall asleep at 8.30-9.00pm. Granted, you are quite cheerful while we do that. You smile a lot, rub your nose against mine, roll about, kiss me, and breastfeed while doing 360 degree spins about the bed.
7. I enjoy least the way you decide you don’t want to eat the food item you asked for after I have finished preparing it for you.
8. I enjoy least scrambling to find things in the car, while I am driving, to keep you amused when you are getting bored and sad on car trips. How about this scrap of paper? This old bit of food you dropped here last time? My mobile phone?
9. I enjoy least reading the same books to you over and over again. We have a lot of toddler books and a lot of toddler books is not nearly enough.  We need a quantity closer to a shit load of toddler books. I enjoy least being the sort of person to have huge fines on my library card so we can’t just borrow books from the library.
10. I enjoy least that you are already starting to exercise some authority over what you will wear – seeing what we go through with your sister I have some idea where this will end, and it is mortifying. At the moment it is nothing worse than insisting you get dressed back into your PJ shirt because you like the elephant and giraffe on them.
11. I enjoy least that you put things in your mouth, especially when you suspect they are things I am going to take away from you – batteries, strange berries, assorted pieces of rubbish, buttons, coins, glow sticks, insect repellent etc. Sometimes you tell me that you have something disgusting in your mouth by coming up to me and pretending to spit something out.
12. I enjoy most your nickname for your sister, which has recently appeared in your vocabulary and it is ‘Nya-nya’. (Sounds a bit like the Spanish Ñ and makes a lot more sense if you know Lauca’s real name). You also often blend the sign we taught you for her, which is ‘sister’, with the sign for ‘crying/sad’, which makes a lot of sense because when we are talking about Lauca you know we are also often referring to the fact that she is wailing or screaming.
13. I enjoy most hearing you sing your first songs, which happened over the last couple of weeks – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Incy Wincy Spider.
14. I enjoy most the way you love to do a version of “Happy If You Know It” where you stick out your tongue. You have a huge tongue. Your sister loves showing off this trick of yours and will regularly sing “Happy If You Know It” for you in front of people just so they can see you stick our your tongue.
15. I enjoy most your perfect little smacky kisses. The way you just come off mid-way through a breastfeed to lean up and kiss me.
16. I enjoy most getting to know your personality – how charming and vivacious and plucky you are. How pretty much nothing frightens you, except that giraffe puppet when your sister uses that screechy voice for it.
17. I enjoy most how much easier you are to put to sleep than your sister ever was. You don’t like it when I decide that an hour is more than enough breastfeeding in the middle of the night but you are quite reasonable about the disappointment. You don’t scream/sob/wallow.
18. I enjoy most when you dress yourself in necklaces and bracelets and carry handbags over your shoulder – you seem to mimic me putting on necklaces by tying rope around your neck a little less these days too, which is good, because you were always almost choking yourself. I didn’t enjoy it when you stole my mascara and put black ink all over the side of your face and hair.
19. I enjoy most watching you play with the cat. The cat enjoys it about 90% of the time. No, maybe 80% of the time.
20. I enjoy most how well you are picking up on Montessori – how you have learnt to wipe up your spills and put the cloth in the laundry basket, how you put your toys away (sometimes) after playing with them, how you like to eat your meals (even your snacks) at the table now.
21. I enjoy most your love of engine noises. How you stop in your tracks to enjoy a good engine noise – whether it be an aeroplane, a lawnmower, or a motorbike.
22. I enjoy most your fairly patient way of solving things for yourself. You are very independent. The way you get offended because we won’t let you feed yourself curry should be up there on my ‘enjoy least’ list though.  Speaking of which, how you hate to be thwarted. If you even think someone is trying to thwart you – you get violent with them. You hold on to grudges too, you will come all the way down the other end of the house to find me and whack me if you think I recently thwarted you.
23. I enjoy most your signing – it is bloody amazing to watch. Very clear signs, I really should photograph them; even people who don’t know signing can often guess eventually what you are telling them. I loved the time you managed to dob on your sister and you told me entirely in sign language. The time I tapped your hand away when you were breastfeeding because you were using it to pinch me and you sat up to sign to me that this made you feel ‘sad’. I love how excited you get when you successfully tell us something through your signs.
24. I enjoy a lot having a nanny and not having to go through daycare anxiety with you the way we did with your sister. Though poor Lauca probably could have done with the nanny and you would have coped better than her at daycare. I enjoy least that you correct some of your parenting mistakes with the second child and the poor first-born has to muddle through.
25. I enjoy most that you have started doing this little canter – which I think is you trying to skip – when you get really excited.
26. I love that you invented your own sign for music and that for some reason it is you casually head banging to an imaginary beat. Too cute.

Bill’s.

1. I enjoy least that you won’t Stay Out of The Fucking Freezer. It is just a matter of time before it happens where I don’t find the cat’s frozen chicken leg before it is too late.
2. I enjoy least the fact that you use the stools to stand on/climb on to the kitchen bench/to sit on but only perilously on the edge.
3. I enjoy least… well, please stop unplugging the peripherals from my computer.
4. I enjoy least that your idea of tickling is pinching/scratching.. and you think you are actually tickling because while you do it to me you say “tickle, tickle, tickle”.
5. I enjoy most the way you are currently endlessly reminiscing about the lizard incident in your sister’s bedroom.
6. I enjoy watching how quickly you pick up new signs at the moment.
7. I enjoyed the other day when we saw the wild ducks with their new ducklings and you turned to me excitedly and said “I waved that duck”.
8. I enjoy most that you obviously understand the things we say and I enjoy least that most of the things we say to you are met with “Nuh!”.
9. I enjoy most your love of books, which is as overwhelming as your sister’s has been. If I don’t read fast enough you start yelling at me “Da, Da, dat, dat”. (Dad, Dad, that, that).
10. I enjoy most your profound sense of order/rightness. If you get yourself a plate you will lay out a fresh place mat first and you always want to use your fork to eat with.
11. I enjoy most all the beautiful cuddles and kisses you give.