Two-and-a-half

Towards the end of the holidays, Moses hit what I assume is the dreaded Terrible Twos (I’m not entirely sure if that’s what this is, but he’s two, and it’s terrible...). We were cruising along nicely, me thinking, “What a simply delightful age! Why would anyone not like this age?! Maybe Mo’s skipped that Terrible Two thing because we’re such wonderful parents!” then BAM! Nek minnit, our toddler is lying on the floor of the supermarket and screaming because he’s not allowed to eat a nectarine until after we’ve paid for it. A super high point was when he threw a particularly loud and ugly tantrum because I had the nerve to run to the toilet and vomit rather than fetch him the toast he’d demanded. Age two-and-a-half sucks.

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Mo: I got an idea! Mummy’s got a baby in her tummy!

My husband: Quiet, Moses. It’s still time out.

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The other night I spotted two envelopes I was supposed to have posted, still sitting on the table. I gasped and pointed before loudly saying, “CRAP!” Moses, concerned that Daddy was needed to jump in and kill something (I react in much the same way to spiders), asked, “Where’s the crap, Mummy?” which made my husband and me snort and giggle like kids. 

Mo kept looking between us, wondering why no one was doing anything about the crap when it had seemed so urgent just moments before, and asked again, “Where’s the crap?” Realising he wasn’t going to let this mystery go without a satisfying answer, and having no intention of mentioning anything about words he probably shouldn’t use around Nanna, I showed him the envelopes and tried to calmly explain that I had been meaning to post the letters that day, but had forgotten to do it. Still a little uncertain, he pointed to the picture on the stamp and asked, “Is that a crap, Mummy?”

“Yes, darling,” I said. “That’s a crap.”

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Mo: You get baby out of your tummy now?

Me: No, buddy, this is college. I’m just enrolling in a couple of subjects.

Despite being at his most difficult stage so far, Mo’s also at his most interesting and adorable. He offers cuddles and says, “I love you too, Mummy!” when I kiss him on the cheek. He adds new words and phrases to his vocabulary every week; three recent additions are “God willing” as in “Daddy come home after I have a sleep, God willing?”, “Don’t worry, Mummy!” (usually as he’s heading towards a validly-concerning situation), and “What are you talking about?” He makes up games and sings songs to himself and imagines all kinds of broken things that need fixing.

We found a book at the library – part of a ‘People who help us’ series - about a dentist named Joe. After one read I decided it was the most boring book we’d ever read; after one read, Moses decided it was the most fascinating book we’d ever read. We read it around 27 billion times in the time we had it, and I returned it long before its due date because I couldn’t bear to go through it again. Later, I was inspecting the extra tooth Mo’s grown (he’s an overachiever, in true first-born style) and murmured something about having to see the dentist about it. “YAAAAAAAAAY!!” he cried. “We go tomorrow?!”

He is heart-burstingly gorgeous and makes me laugh most days (often not too long before he makes me want to run away from home). Two-and-a-half is a simply delightf—  Wait...

Never mind.