Two-year-olds rule the world: A day with my child

The terrible twos. Did parents always have to contend with this? Clearly this must be a recent development. I do not remember wreaking havoc in our home as a toddler neither do I remember any of my siblings doing so.

Perhaps, with six other children in our home, there was little time for us to pay attention to such details. Could it be that ‘terrible two’ was brought about by the fact that families have shrunk? Having a child who is two years old or thereabouts in the house is enough to make you work overtime in the office even with no pay just so you get home when they are asleep.

I wasn’t feeling well the other day and I had decided to call in sick to work. I had a terrible migraine and I couldn’t open my eyes, I kept blinking like a faulty bulb. As I lay in bed waiting for the right time to make the call to my boss, I felt tortured, tempted and tried by my almost two year old. I ended up making the decision to report to work instead. I was better off blinking in the office than ‘resting’ in my house.

Ten more minutes with her and the next thing would have been an ambulance cruising its way to my house. She turned my tummy into a bouncing castle, my cheeks to a punching bag, my ears into a vuvuzela and my hands into a skipping rope. I knew it was a done deal the moment she started pulling my head off my collar bone. For seconds, all I saw was darkness as my blinking slowed down.

She was enjoying every minute of it. The more I raised my voice at her, the more she thought we were age mates. I tried spanking her but she cried for a minute or so and went back to her bullying. Then I remembered reading somewhere that locking them in a room works as great punishment.

I immediately locked her in a separate room hoping she would get things right only to get worried when ten minutes later because she had not made a sound. I went to check on her only to find the room in a mess. She had turned the room into a toddler heaven (more like adult hell). I took a shower, reported to work and promised to be the last one to leave the office.

I now understand why many mothers of toddlers leave the office early but instead sit at Mama Mboga’s catching up as they make desperate calls to their helps to find out if their children are already asleep. Woe unto you if your child peeps from either the balcony or the window and spots you at Mama Mboga’s.

Surprisingly, these wonderful beings are always in their best behaviour all day when with the house help but the moment Mama walks through the door, all hell breaks loose.

I know mothers who sneak into their homes and lock themselves in their bedrooms to steal a short nap before their toddlers stumble on their presence. You would be forgiven for thinking some mothers in our neighborhood are armed robbers about to ambush a home. They will stand at strategic places near their homes making frantic calls to alert their helps to ‘go to the shop’ with their children.

Once the helps leave, you will see these mothers dashing into their homes with their faces covered. Two minutes later, the helps will walk back into the homes with the children who will have no idea they have just been tricked.

The lives and times of mothers to two-year-olds should be recorded and kept in archives! These little angels truly run our homes.

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