The
end of an era
Friday 2 June, 2000
Like so many things it happened when I wasn't ready for it. I was asleep, dreaming in that early morning time before the alarm goes off. It was a weird dream. Debbie and I were lying in bed (I think) and watching tv, and on the tv screen there was this video of a really beefcake type guy doing aerobics, surrounded by all these women following his movements. But in a predatory sort of way, like he had to perform for them. There was a knock on the door of our house, and it became clear we were waiting for someone, and the knock was them arriving.
In that split second when you change from dream to awake, the knock on the door became the pad of little toddler feet on the floor, and I was awoken by Matthew going “ba-baa (bottle) time” in his best MC Hammer voice.
The end of an era. He'd learned how to climb out of his cot unaided. Our mornings are never going to be the same again. No longer can we try and ignore his plaintive cries of “up Daddy, up Daddy” and when that doesn't work, “up Mummy, up Mummy”, while pretending he's not really there and going back to sleep. From now on, it's going to be the pad of feet, the pushing open of the bedroom door, and the excited cry of “ba baa time.”
He's changing and growing in so many ways. His latest expression is “no way!” Ask him to do something he doesn't want to, “no way!” Sometimes, if you catch him in a good moment, he'll want to do what you suggest, and go “yes way!”
He's obsessed with driving. It almost impossible to fasten him into the car seat as he squirms and wriggles, saying “drive the car, drive the car” and trying to get behind the driver's wheel. And once you unfasten him, he's out of that seat like an Olympic sprinter, crawling between the two front seats and onto the driver's. We spent 20 minutes yesterday, me in the passenger seat and him behind the wheel. We drove to Max's as he shifted the gears, turned the wheel, opened the window, flicked the lights on, turned the radio on and off, started the heater, pressed every button, climbed into the back seat (I had to control the car then), and went “vroom, vroom” excitedly every time a car passed us as we sat on the side of the road.
And we rode on the bus yesterday too. He did for the first time last week, and he's been dying to again ever since. “Ride the buses Dad, ride the buses … ” We paid our one section fare and sat up on the seat together, side by side. He pointed out all the other buses we passed as we rode from Dixon St down to the Railway station then back again. And he'd squeal excitedly when the bus engine made a loud noise, “noisy bus, noisy bus.”
I guess you forget just how exciting the world is when you're two years old and you haven't a care in the world and there's so many things waiting for you to explore and learn and have fun with.
And for each era that ends, there's a new one just beginning.