Dearest David,
Today you turn nineteen months old. Because I’m is a bit rubbish and didn’t realise this until last night, here’s a photo of you asleep on Nana’s shoulder, and I’ll write you a proper newsletter over the weekend. Promise.
Love,
Mummy
I’m feeling particularly crap and undermined today. We spent this Easter weekend with David’s “other” grandparents: my parents. I’m glad to be home.
My mother has a horrible tendency to take over. This morning, I was up and awake and looking after David, and she came into the bedroom, took him out of my arms, and took him downstairs to play. I hadn’t yet changed him and he hadn’t had his morning feed, but that didn’t matter to her. She played with him for a bit, and then took him for breakfast. Now, he’s perfectly capable of feeding himself with a loaded spoon, and in the last few weeks he’s started to crack loading his own spoon, and feeding himself. I arrived downstairs when he was in the middle of a bowl of Weetabix with added Cheerios (the sugar content!), which he was trying valiantly to feed himself: she, of course, wouldn’t let go of the spoon and was trying to force it into his mouth. After every messy spoonful she wiped him: it would’ve been much less messy if she’d just let him get on with it. When he’d finished his breakfast she remarked that he smelled of wee, and should I perhaps change him? Well, yes, that’s what happens if you leave a child in the same nappy for twelve hours.
There’s another thing. Joe and I aren’t bothered about a little bit of mess: that’s what babies and toddlers and little boys do, surely? Mum, however, disagrees. As soon as his nose starts to run or a little bit of dribble escapes from his mouth, she pounces on him with a tissue, even if he’s wearing a dribble bib. She does it with paper towel, too, so it’s rough against his poor skin.
Usually, if David wants a hug, he comes and asks for one, then runs off and plays again. My mother picks him up at every opportunity, and holds onto him until he throws a fit. She won’t pick him up and pass him to me, she has to hold him herself, even when he’s tired and asking for me. This evening, when he needed to be held and snuggled to sleep, he didn’t want to be touched: given that he’s had next to no personal space all weekend I’m not suprised. It took me an hour to soothe him.
The damage that all of this has done should be able to be undone in a day or two’s time. However, she’s also managed to undermine me on something I’ve been struggling with for weeks. In the time we were there, my mother gave David everything he wanted, the minute he wanted it, even when I’d said no. All he had to do was point and say “dat!”, and she’d hand him whatever he was pointing to. This morning he ate far too much chocolate, because she fed it to him without asking me. He ate half a punnet of grapes on Friday morning for the same reason. Every time he wanted something this weekend he went to her and asked her for it, and now he expects everything to be handed to him the second he decides he wants it. We’ve had tantrums this evening over not touching the Aga, over not being allowed to dismantle the decoration on the bathroom door, over not being allowed a fourth Mini Egg. We’d only just got to the point where he wouldn’t throw a complete fit over everything minor, and I can see it taking two or three weeks to get back to where we were before we went down to Kent.
It’s not just these individual things that annoy me, it’s the way she tries to undermine every single parenting decision I’ve ever made. Although she’s not spoiling him when she gives him everything he wants, I’m apparently spoiling him by breastfeeding. Although she clings onto him for dear life, I shouldn’t carry him in a sling as it’ll make him clingy. Although he’s a big boy now (and far too big to be breastfed) he should have his food mushed up and fed to him, and although he “doesn’t need red pepper” (direct quote!) she has to feed him chocolate. She does tell me these things to my face, but she’s also got these sly, subtle ways of doing exactly the opposite of the decisions we’ve made, and I hate it. I wish she’d just support me (and Joe, of course) in the decisions we’ve made, in the way we’ve chosen to bring up this little boy, rather than turning it into a competition all the time.
One thing that’s certain is that David is going to be shocked and horrified at the loss of his chocolate tomorrow:
