To my dear parents, I apologize profusely for all that I put you through in the years of my upbringing. It is only at the age of 33 that I truly see the agony you must have gone through. The aforementioned disclaimer is for all of us to memorize and repeat to our parents, verbally and in our prayers, because trust me, rearing children is no walk in the park.
It starts off easily enough. The noise, the sleep-deprivation, the diapers can all be likened to stresses at the work-place (for the last one, just think of how you imagine your manager when you’re extremely irritated by them). It is what comes next that is a complete curve-ball thrown at us by life as a giant cosmic joke, payback for what we did to our own parents (and the reason why we should all read the first two lines again and again) that we rarely have a recollection of, and they in turn rarely speak about.
The first three months are like any new relationship, you are still learning, feeding, changing with little to no reciprocity, asides from a slight movement of the lip you vehemently convince yourself is a smile of appreciation to ward off the stress of being dominated by a being no taller than your knees.
The next six months are a blessing, your baby is finally humanoid and able to communicate in very basic ways (reduced are the stresses of overfeeding, the constant need to burp and the need to use the ever-useful throw-up towel).
It is around this age of 9 months that your previously sedentary baby, now turned into crawling baby, transitions into standing baby. You might be extremely happy at this point, but a word of caution: standing is the harbinger of the impending doom – the walking.
At first, it is cute. Baby’s first steps are always cute. It is ok because they are still figuring out how to use their little legs, and they are 100% sure you are distracted trying to find them a cute pair of tiny shoes to showcase on their adorable little feet. Little do you realize, this is a dastardly ploy to keep you occupied.
As you are focused on the fact that your cute baby can now walk, you completely ignore the fact that they are upright. With everything that goes with that new level of ascension.
You may not realize this, but babies get taller. The taller they get, the more we parents feel like we are living in a flooding house – raise everything higher! It’s easy at first, but then you realize the little cretins can reach up and across, grabbing anything and everything in their path, the world’s worst delivery system as they take everything they can get their tiny hands on and deposit it in the unlikeliest of places – at this point things start to disappear, the TV remote, your earrings, your mobile phone (thank goodness for findmyphone programs, lest my phone had been thrown away with the trash).
They get taller still, and pretty soon they put their training to good use. Remember how fond you were of taking those cute pictures of your child holding on to your finger with their tiny fists? Little did we realize, they were training their grip. Now, they are able to wrap said paws around door handles and force them open.
Our worst fear is now realized. It is no longer a matter of moving everything higher, now we must have a dual locking system akin to the nuclear launch codes of the world’s arsenal. They have now succeeded in opening the apartment door and enjoy the brief taste of freedom in the outside corridor, still too short to reach the elevator buttons. But it will happen, and when it does, woe be upon you.
Remember how we used to jiggle our keys above our little angels to get them to keep quiet? They weren’t fascinated by the inanimate object, they were studying the mechanism of how these little devices can open such big doors. And they are always watching. Learning.
From this parent’s humble opinion, the terrible two’s are not a warning of coming of age, but rather, a foreboding for when they learn to stand on their own two feet.
Warn the others.
Like the Rubik’s Cube, Ayman Nassar is multi-colored in his interests, from running to organizing races, stand- up comedy and internal audit, plus a little writing on the side. You can find him on YouTube or follow him on Instagram @lordaymz. Featured image from Unsplash
