I always feel like somebody’s watching me

Tru talks a lot these days. I’m no expert on the linguistic abilities of almost-two-year-olds so I’m not sure if he’s supposed to talk this much but it really scares me sometimes. Most of the time I’m like “where did you even learn that from, young man?”

Then I realize that while he’s not so keen on picking up the words I teach him or make him repeat after me, he’s really good at watching us and learning all the stuff we say that’s way too advanced for his age.

Things like these:

Whenever Kirsten make a mess, he goes “Oh no, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” and gestures in mock horror.

When he makes a mess, he goes “Oh dear, what are we going to do?“, as if we’re now in this together.

If he know that he’s going to be in trouble, he rubs his chest and goes “Sorry mommy, I won’t do that anymore.”

When Kirsten successfully snatches his toy, he goes “NOOOOOO! You want to go naughty corner?”

When I put on make up, he goes, “Yayyy, mommy pretty!” Nice one.

This is an important parenting lesson for me, but also a very difficult one. Mostly because I prefer ordering them around to do stuff instead of doing it myself. Especially things like eating vegetables and cleaning up and sharing.

I’m cool with sharing most of my stuff, but when it comes to things like bubble tea and ice-cream, it’s ALL MINE. Because I grew up with a brother and now have a husband who eats faster than Godzilla and then proceeds to attack my share. Me, I need to savor my food and roll it around in my mouth a little bit which takes ages and sharing doesn’t work out very well for me. So either I’ve got to eat fast, which is totally unenjoyable or by the third mouthful, it’s usually gone.

But armed with my newly-acquired parenting skills, I decided to share my infinite wisdom as well as bubble tea with Kel, while flashing him a look that said “if you finish it, there’ll be no more of this sharing business“. It worked like a charm and Tru followed suit. Kel says this means we always have to share because it’s so effective.

I say sharing is overrated. So is cleaning up and eating vegetables.

It’s going to be my fault if the kids grow up to be exactly like me, isn’t it? I guess this means I’ve got to be better so that they can be better. This is turning out to be harder than I thought.