School of Parenting

The Boy is two years and nine months now and steadily becoming more and more independent which makes me proud, petrified and tired. He’s never really been one for temper tantrums but he is a stubborn one and knows his own mind. Overall though he is a very good child and I think the Man and I have had it fairly easy (cue payback with impending number 2): he never really touched anything he shouldn’t, never got into kitchen cupboards, never climbed the stairs when our backs were turned, never runs off, doesn’t hit or bite.

Caring Cat

Just so you know, I didn’t decide to write this post after seeing Rosie Scribbles top tips for Bloggers – honestly! No really, I have been wanting to post this video for a while as it just makes me chuckle but I have only just managed to get the video file off my blackberry (its a work phone and they block everything but as I am leaving today, yay, I’ve got a new phone and I managed to swap the memory card, learn some new techy skills and hey presto!)

>Don’t you tell me what to do…

>…is the Boys current favourite phrase. I have no idea who he learnt it from, who still has slightly toddler-ish tendencies with a penchant for tantrums, feet stamping and childish comments. Definitely not me. It was not me. No it wasn’t.

I love it when he says this, with a cheeky smile and a knowing look that he is saying something a little bit naughty. I advised him that I could, of course, tell him what to do and in fact it is my given right as his mother but unfortunately he does not have to listen. I am wondering whether I should have missed out the last part, I have a feeling it will come back to bite me in the bum.

I am very blessed (or clever as I like to think of it) to have made a Boy who is so lovely and so very good. He is very rarely naughty, unless he is tired. He doesn’t get into cupboards, pull wires, climb on tables or run off. He never tantrums in public and is always perfectly behaved when around other people. I honestly have no idea how he is so good, its definitely a nature thing. Which is why I actually love our little fights and his attempts at asserting his power. They always happen in the house (when he is tired!) and he is so so stubborn. I am concerned that he might become a product of me and the Man which would make the stubbornness person in the world but I would be quite proud of this. I want him to have balls! I am quite a wimpy person and a bit of a scaredy-cat, both emotionally and physically. It has taken me 29 years to have the courage to teach myself how to do a seat drop on the trampoline! The Man is the opposite and I really want the Boy to take this from him, although without the need to drive down country lanes at 16 without headlights “just for fun”.

So for now I am embracing his defiant tendencies, maybe because they are so few and far between and not very forcefully attempted, but I am sure I will regret that one day!

>Why Mummy?

>The Boy: my pride and joy, my angel, the one who can only do wrong until he flashes me a smile, has discovered a new word. “Why” has suddenly entered his vocabulary and I am absolutely loving this, I was actually waiting for my opportunity to have a real conversation with him and to impart upon him all of my worldly knowledge. Unfortunately my knowledge is not quite as far reaching as I had hoped and, as I don’t own an internet phone, Wikipedia is not on hand 24/7 and he will not wait for “Mummy needs to Google that”. 


I feel like such a failure when I don’t know the answer, is it just me? I never really cared before if I didn’t know something as I could always look it up and learn but when my Boy asks me something I feel like I must know the answer or I’m failing him. I want him to know all the things I don’t, I guess that’s just another way we live vicariously through our children!


So far, I answer all his questions truthfully and to the extent my knowledge stretches that far but because his persistence far outweighs mine, the conversations inevitably end in “because”. I am off to buy a complete encyclopaedia now!