Parenting

Daymare with a toddler

Is it a Monday gone wrong? Maybe not!

It started on a good note. My 14-month-toddler overslept, which gave me some time to breathe and start my week. In an attempt to finish few of my chores before my angel (who thought she had other plans?) woke up, I did some laundry, finished half of my cooking and sat myself down at the dining table to eat my first morsel of the day. 

Isn’t that the right time for her to wake up? Leaving my platter aside, I cuddled with her on the bed for a few moments, prayed with her and carried her to the hall. Putting her on the potty stool in the living room, I went inside to get her toys. It took me a few minutes to make her sit back on the stool and engage with her toys. Just when I was sure she’s engaged, I went to the kitchen to make her breakfast. 

Two minutes later, I walk into the hall to see her go potty on the floor in three different places (Goo! I know it sounds gross, I’m sorry! You’ll only understand when you become a mom). I quickly cleaned her up and the mess she made. 

As I started feeding her, I saw a small cluster of ants making their way to the door. I remember cleaning up the house before we set out for the weekend. No clue how they came up. Probably they were trying to get their meal too and ended up in our living room. Anyhow, I swept the floor immediately to prevent them from biting my baby girl, and resumed feeding her. Another set of ants came out of nowhere and I swept the floor again. Phew! After one hour of running around and feeding her, I found a third set of ants. This time I got an ant-eater (Lakshman Rekha chalk), and applied it in the corners. Worked like magic!

While I was busy making the magic happen, she came out of the kitchen, holding a knife in both her hands on the steel sharp end. She was about it put it in her mouth when I screamed. I couldn’t pull it because I was afraid it might cut through her tiny soft hands and tongue. The mother’s intuition worked. My scream made her throw the knife on the floor. She was angry, but it saved me from what could’ve been the worst. 

She fell down on the floor crying, but that was exactly where I applied the magic ant-eater. 
P.S: Please don’t judge me for using it. The reason I didn’t use it the first two times was because I knew it wasn’t a great choice with a toddler around.
I gave her an instant wash and she was on her feet again.

My next task was to dry the clothes outside. I was clipping them on the clothesline when she came out with my mobile in her hand. Sensing no danger, I turned around to pick the next dress and freaked out. I reached out just in time to grab my phone and saved it from death, as my naughty little baby tried to throw it down from the second floor without any pity.

A series of events followed – scattering wet clothes all over the ground, opening the moisturizer and applying it to the tiles, slipping on the wet floor and falling down, pulling out all the diapers from the cupboard, trying to stand on the potty stool and pulling out all the utensils from the kitchen drawers.

As if I did not have enough tasks to finish, the mixer gave me trouble and all the baby food sputtered onto the wall, fridge, kitchen slab and all over the dining area along with the chair cushions. My head reeled at the extra work in sight.

Ignoring it for the moment, I fed her lunch (oh! It was already evening by then). I hardly turned around to pick up the toys and clean the mess when I heard a loud thud and my heart skipped a beat. She climbed onto the sofa and fell down to the ground hard on her face. Thankfully, there were no external bruises but her unending cry scared me to death. I cried along with her. She kept touching my cheeks, as if to stop me from crying but she kept crying.

I had no courage to face another such incident for the day and asked my husband to come home asap. He came home drenched, but his presence gave me peace. We slowly got back to normal. Liz went around smiling and playing. It gave us some relief.

Soon as we climbed onto the bed to doze off, she started pouring out kisses on my face, licking me all over and tickling me. I kept giggling like a kid who just got a popsicle. In a jiffy, everything that happened melted away in those sweet lick-ticklish kisses. We snoozed away to a blissful sleep.

The day ended on a good note, just as it started.

But all that happened in between – does it really matter? 

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