The day my toddler became a teenager

The freezing-cold, damp, February air, couldn’t ruin the joys of being a father that were still naively strong within me. At this time I still fully believed that I was the best thing to happen to parenthood since Professor Robert Winston first decided to don a comedy moustache. All that was about to change, suddenly my toddler was about to take his first steps on a road, down which he wasn’t due to tread for quite a few years. Today was the day he became a teenager.

We hadn’t really had a big issue with the “Terrible Twos” as such; oh Daniel was always full on and tricky, but following all the standard parent tricks seemed to work just nicely. This repeated success in the handling of minor toddler strops had lulled me into a comfortably secure feeling of parental prowess, until we had child number 2 and Daniel turned to the dark side.

The idea was simple enough, a nice - fresh air – walk around one of those open farms, plenty of exercise and stimulus for child, baby and parents alike, Professor Winston would be proud. Also we had the In-Laws visiting so a chance to impress them with how well we are coping. I soon was in full Dad mode passing on all my knowledge of which animal noises match which animal and failing to mention mint sauce just yet ( Dad jokes sometimes have to wait until the child is old enough to get them after all ).

Then it happened, we had become cut off from the rest of the party, the ladies were off somewhere with the baby and ahead in the distance was my father in law – a man who had already stated that his first job, should he win the lottery, was to ‘pay Glen off’. Daniel stood there looking at the sheep chewing his coat lapel – an act we had been trying to discourage in this nice new coat – and so I knew that now was the perfect time to settle this matter, once and for all.

I asked him to stop sucking his coat, he ignored me. I told him to stop, he ignored me. I gave a very clearly defined instruction to stop, he ignored me. With hindsight, this was probably the point to give it up and worry about it later, hindsight was sadly not available at the time, however. I continued, this time I told him that if he couldn’t look after his coat then I would take it off him, a flicker – great, this nice warm coat was already his favourite and I’d found his weakness, I had him. After a moments pause he went straight back to sucking the coat, RIGHT. I swiftly removed his coat and held it aloft, he had to know my threats aren’t empty after all, the look on his face said it all, I’d won. 33 years of life experience had led to this point, and it was all worth it, Daniel was about to apologize and beg to have his coat back, he would never again suck the lapel, Jo and her parents were about to smother me with praise for sorting out this dire issue when they had failed to manage it. Forever more I would now, finally, be the Man of the house. I felt drunk with the moment and so I pressed on, “ If you promise not to suck it any more you can have it back “ I wisely pointed out, “NO” replied Daniel – what ? what was that – did he just say no ?

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and said “it’s not cold”, onwards he walked away from me. No wait, that’s not what happens! Daniel continued to boldly stride on towards his Grandpa, who I could see looking absolutely bemused as to why on Earth I’d just removed Daniel’s coat on such a cold day. There was absolutely no way it was warm enough to be out with no coat on – now what ?

I ordered him to put his coat back on, he ignored me. I told him to put his coat back on, he ignored me. I asked him to put his coat back on, he ignored me. All the time closing the gap to his confused Grandfather, Ok so I begged him to put his coat on, promised him sweets and said that he could continue sucking it if he liked. At this point Daniel turned, smiled, put his coat on and stuck the lapel firmly in his mouth, his work complete, his Father broken.

And so there it was, my son had become a 3 year old teenager, and has only really continued to abuse his Father since. Even his brother, now 4, has started. Just this morning I was told that I just didn’t understand him, or his music, as he banged his ELC drum on my head…