Baby love
It’s a bit funny that I know I have a ‘baby brand’ yet I’ve never been massively a baby person. If you’d told my 17 year old self this is what I would have been doing at 37 I’d probably have managed to snort my Lambrusco out of my nostrils. What a difference 20 years makes hey?⠀
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Now of course, as a parent, I’m so immersed in this world, although I have to say it’s mainly from a pure fascination point of view. I still don’t go gaga over every baby photo I see, only the ones from people I know because I now understand what a precious little bundle that is. But I am finding that motherhood is blowing my mind daily, sometimes hourly. ⠀
Superhuman feats
I mean these little people who come out into the world and in 2 years learn to sit up, crawl, walk, run, eat, feed themselves (ish) speak, sing, dance and challenge the world around them. And so much more. If someone said to you as an adult you could become superhuman in 2 years you wouldn’t believe them. Yet here are our babies basically changing from helpless to pretty independent in such a short period of time. ⠀
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I am astounded at what goes in that little brain. And then what comes back out again. The perspective and the way the world is viewed. I’m definitely learning a lot about myself and becoming so much more aware of how I speak and what I say. I read the book ‘
How to talk so little kids will listen’ by Joanna Faber and Julie King and it was a game changer for me. The authors talk a lot about what would happen if we spoke to adults the way we speak to our kids - the answer usually being they’d avoid us like the plague and think we were complete kn*bs.
Kindness costs nothing
So when trying to coax a toddler to do something he really doesn’t want to do I’m now much more aware of lecturing him or making demands in a horrible voice, being pushy and angry. I know sometimes we all just snap and you cant help a blow out but I have been amazed at how the gentle approach seems to reap many more rewards in the co-operation camp. After all don’t we all want to be treated with patience and kindness? Our children are no different and it al goes in. Never have I felt so small as when my sobbing toddler has repeated the lecture I have just given him about going to sleep. Quite frankly it made me feel like the meanest and most callous mother on the planet! ⠀
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So the more I fall down the rabbit hole of parenthood the more I realise that kids are like Jonny 5 - need input. And that’s definitely something that I now feel is a big part of what I do here at TLBWBP. Creating inspiration for their growing brains and to open the world up to them in a way they wouldn’t otherwise get to see. ⠀