In a few week’s time it will be The Baby’s second birthday. I therefore feel it is now time to promote him to the role of The Toddler in forthcoming Family Ties articles. Like most youngest children in a busy family, the last two years have flown by and it is only now that it has become obvious to us all that he is in fact no longer a baby and scarily his first morning at pre-school is looming. When I think back over the past couple of years I am suddenly struck with a sudden feeling of guilt.
The two older children were born in London so they travelled on buses, tubes and taxis regularly. Since we have been living in Dorset, we still try and take the odd trip to London on the train and enjoy day trips out to the theatre, ice creams in Harrods ice cream parlour and walks down to Buckingham Palace. I am ashamed to admit, The Toddler has never been on a train, bus or taxi to London or anywhere else. In fact, as my five-year-old daughter pointed out, he has not even had a Babycino in Starbucks. Last year, he did not make our holiday in Cambodia and instead spent two weeks with Granny and Grandpa In fact, that is where he has spent much of his first two years. And more often than not, he is accompanied by his best friend, Molly, our border terrorist. In fact, over the past two years, he has barely left the village other than on the weekly shop to the local supermarket.
At home, he is a very relaxed little boy. Thank goodness, I hear you say. He is perfectly happy to play with all the old toys that his siblings were given. He is satisfied being dressed in perfectly good clothes passed down from his brother, with only the odd button missing. He is content with his Mummy reading him a rather sticky old book at bedtime, albeit at record speed as her mind turns to homework, laying out school uniform and reading to the other two.
With his birthday looming, which unfortunately he shares with his sister, my mother casts my mind back to my daughter’s second birthday. We hired a room in a children’s restaurant in London where she enjoyed an afternoon of soft play alongside fifteen of her two-year-old friends. The photographs show her sitting at the end of a large table, wearing the most beautiful dress, with the most phenomenal tea displayed before her. For ‘The Toddler’, I was thinking more along the lines of his three little friends, or rather my three friends’ children, coming over for a round of lunchtime sandwiches in the kitchen. But as the guilt sets in, I will buy him a new shirt to wear, rummage around for some balloons and perhaps take him on his first bus ride to Sturminster Newton.
