Baby on the move: What the f*ck just happened?

I feel like I’ve been thrown with full force into bloody Dorothy’s tornado…

Yikes!

Can someone please just explain to me what the hell has happened to my life? I have a child that’s what… yes he’s still a baby, but he’s no longer a ‘baby’ if you get what I mean.

I feel like I’ve been thrown with full force into bloody Dorothy’s tornado, spun around 5 million times (no, lets make that 5 billion), bashed my head on that bloody floating house, and then spat out. Oh, and then Toto shat all over my face. That’s what I feel like EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Happy ten months to you today Bobby boy! Happy ‘you somehow survived another day’ Sophie!

First of all let me say that I sit here and can 110% unequivocally say that I am never having another child. Okay, that might be a teeny tiny bit of a lie, but give me five years, minimum!

Second of all let it be known that I’m well aware I only have one child, and that the mother’s reading this with multiple children will be scoffing or at least thinking ‘you’re kidding yourself, Soph’. Fair! I’ll pay that! Because I know if I fast-forward five years when I have number two, I’ll be crying to my miserable self, going ‘why did I complain when I just had one’.

However, I also want all of you thinking those thoughts to remember what your life was like in your first year of motherhood. I’m currently hitting reality mode. My little bubble of sleep deprivation and pregnancy hormones mixed with an unbearable amount of love for this beautiful little person I created has just burst.

Look, I’m still sitting on cloud nine with Bobby – but it’s currently raining. Bucketing down. This shit is hard!!!

My house constantly looks like I’ve been burgled – except Bobby is the burglar. He rummages through every possible draw in this house, leaving an endless trail of toys, books, socks, dog biscuits’, remote controls, DVD cases, iPhone chargers, thongs – I’m just naming the many items I am currently looking at in front of me on my lounge room floor as I write this.

You would think that by now I would know that as soon as I get Bob up in the morning and put him on the floor, he beelines for the dog water bowl. And no, not to drink out of or put his face anywhere near it for that matter – it’s to tip it – no... throw it… everywhere. So most mornings, due to my own lack attentiveness as I stroll around in my zombie state, I somehow forget he likes to do this and I find myself mopping both my floor and a drenched Bobby.

Another favourite thing Bobby likes to do since his discovery of crawling is to visit me in the shower. We have a sliding shower door so it’s virtually impossible for me to stop him opening it. I either have to shower whilst using one hand to hold it shut, or I let him sit there and open and close it and risk chopping all of his porky fingers off. My resolution? Just let him come in. I gave up trying to stop him when last week – and this is not one word of a lie – I found myself having a peaceful shower as Bobby sat outside the door playing with his forever favourite spaghetti strainer.

As I washed my hair and hummed away to Nikki Minaj, I was eyes-closed under the water rinsing away when I felt what I thought was the face washer fall onto my feet. After I could finally see, it was in fact the face washer. Bobby was sitting in between my legs at the bottom of the shower playing with the face washer. Fully dressed and nappy on, his pajamas were 100% soaked by the time I realised what had happened. He is so good at opening that shower door, that unbeknownst to me, he had crawled in and started playing. Sneaky little bugger. So what did I do? Let him sit there and continue to play of course, pajamas and all. He loved it! When people said to me ‘enjoy your showers while you can’ when I was pregnant… I now know why.

Oh and haven’t we learnt to throw things! I find it so great that when my partner comes home from work, he makes sure he sits down with Bobby for a good 45 minutes and plays. Solidly. Boys being boys, this mostly involves some kind of ball. Bobby is a real natural with his hand-eye coordination and is really starting to get the hang of picking the ball up when Jaryd rolls it to him, and throwing it back. But mostly he enjoys playing ‘throwing’ with mummy in the morning. And at lunchtime. And at dinner time. Bobby likes to throw eggs, toast, spoons, his water bottle, broccoli, and especially banana. He loves to mash the banana up first, and then throw it. Just great...

His love for throwing food is also a massive contradiction compared to his love for food itself. He’s an outright pig, in a good way. He’s not a fussy eater and usually demolishes any edible item placed in front of him. Except when we go to a café, of course. Why on earth would he want what’s in front of him, when he could in fact have what’s on my plate? Because suddenly the food he was devouring one minute before my food arrived is no longer acceptable for King Bobby of the Suburbs, that he demands he has mine!

I know I’ve ranted about all the marvelous 'joys' I now have of a baby who is well and truly on the move, I can’t stress enough, though, that I love and adore him. Most of the time…

How did things change for you when your baby started to walk?

This post originally appeared on The Young Mummy.

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