LIVING WITH TODDLERS

LIVING WITH TODDLERS

What do you do when you meet people and your hand has an intense physical or emotional attraction to their face? You run up to them and touch or caress their face, of course. Ehm, that’s only if you’re a cute three-year-old. If an adult explores such an attraction, a backhand slap with the palm imprinted on your face is the likely outcome. Kids. You’ve gotta love ’em. Adorable little munchkins. They can run up to complete strangers and reveal family secrets. They say the silliest things and embarrass their parents to no end. Impatient, cute and cuddly little people. That’s why I’m writing this with a red and puffy right eye.

A three-year-old boy flung out his hand and struck me in the face as we played. It doesn’t matter if the person who hit your eye is a cute toddler. It still hurts. Especially if the child strikes hard, like a pestle hitting a mortar. My right eye was the unfortunate mortar and got a good pounding. I thought the accidental meeting of hand and face was going to be quickly forgotten. But, like most flings, it had serious consequences. I probably rubbed the eye too hard.

I woke up the next morning and my eyelids were stuck together by a sticky coat of pus. The swollen eye looked like it got impregnated from the affair with the striking hand. When I finally pried it open with my fingers, which I worked like a pair of pliers, it looked irritated. Flings are temporary but their effects can linger. 

My right eye, when it was not red-rimmed, was part of my identity and so I now faced an identity crisis. I could not recognize this person in the mirror staring back at me. I also realized my eyebrows had grown wild and unruly. A WTF (Wild Terrifying Fling) moment if ever there was one. I had an important presentation to make that day.  I turned to the garden pruning shears (for taming the eyebrows) and an over-the-counter eye drop (for the red eye). I was hoping to restore my attractiveness or, at least, improve my appearance. It worked because there were no awkward questions about my eye affair during the presentation.

They will spill hot chocolate on your phone, strike your face with their hands, head-butt you during play (painful as hell), throw tantrums, and ruin your gadgets/furniture. Toddlers generally cause chaos in unimaginable big ways. All you can do, most times, is grit your teeth, smile and give them lollipops. You learn to take it in your stride. There’s no middle ground with them. You either learn the virtue of patience or they’ll drive you nuts.