Easing Into Life with a Toddler On the Move: Everything is Messy and Sticky….But also Wonderful and Magical

I walk into the house and every single kitchen cabinet is open. There are bags of chips strewn on the floor and all of the tennis shoes are piled up under the table. Smashed goldfish are ground up into the grout of my kitchen tile. A toy is blasting the Baby Shark song on repeat. What the hell is going on?

This is what my house looks like on any given day now that we have a 17 month old who is walking and running full speed through the house. I was not prepared for this.

I’ll be honest, nothing could have prepared me for this kid, his energy and his fearlessness. I’ve been told that boys are more active than girls, but active is an understatement to describe my sweet Will. He wakes up with boundless energy and he has no off switch. He can not sit still. He actually smiles at me as he is literally destroying my house.

At 6:30 in the morning, I thought kids would want to curl up on the sofa watching cartoons. Nope. He wants to open all the kitchen cabinets, take out each Tupperware and make a pile on the floor. Then he wants to chew on the lids. Then he takes all of the tennis shoes and throws them under the table. Before I can even try to put the stuff away, he will move on to another drawer and start throwing dish towels, sippy cups and whatever else he can find. He reminds me of a teenage girl digging through her drawers screaming that she has nothing to wear as she throws clothes all over the floor. Since he started walking a few months ago, he has only gotten more curious about the world around him. He moves faster than me and I feel completely outnumbered despite being 5 times his size.

I find myself googling, “is it normal for my toddler to….” And turns out, everything he does is normal. Hands in the toilet? Normal. Licking the floor? Normal.

What did I get myself into? Watching him climb onto his water table and try to slide down is terrifying. He also climbs on top of our wooden side tables and tries to push the lamp and anything he can onto the floor. He actually laughs at me if I stop him: a sweet but demonic little chuckle as he looks me right in the eye. It’s no wonder he always had a bruise somewhere on him. He has no coordination, but also no fear. I feel like a bad parent every time he has another visible injury, but then I see some of the other kids at school and they also have skinned knees and scratches on their faces. They must also be banging their heads on the window screen trying to break free.

My husband is probably laughing when he reads this, but I feel like deep down I am a reasonably neat person. Mostly neat anyway. The Tasha I aspire to be is very tidy. She always puts the cap back on the toothpaste and puts away laundry as soon as it’s folded. I know how to be neat, even if I lack the time and energy. My child on the other hand is a wrecking ball. Our home décor vibe can only be described as ransacked. It’s something I am having a really hard time with because I’ve never had so much clutter (ie: trucks, stuffed animals, books, and other junk) all over the place. I feel totally out of control and at the same time, I love watching him play with each thing and hold it up to examine his newfound treasure. I love watching him push all the buttons and laughing at the sounds his toys make. I was cleaning it all up every night after he went to bed, but I quickly realized there wasn’t much of a point because at 6:30 the next morning, he would be back at it.

Aside from the clutter, everything is starting to feel sticky, too. The table after he sits there. The doorknobs from his little fingers. The remote control that he continues to steal from my hiding spots. Everything has smudges of strawberry Go-Gurt no matter how many times I wipe it down. What is a working mom to do? We could hire a cleaning service, but we would need them to come every day. They might even need to move in. I’ve definitely lost sleep trying to stay on top of the cleanliness. But there’s only so many hours in the day and I only have so much energy. I would much rather play with my son than wipe down all the kitchen surfaces for the third time that day. So that is where I am at now, trying to make peace with the mess and change my thoughts about it all. After all, the mess allows my son to see and reach for whatever he wants to play with. If I keep it all in the toybox or in drawers, he won’t be able to access his stuff and that feels unfair. He is only 2 feet tall, so he needs to be able to reach. He is only going to be this little for a short time. I want to get on the floor with him and play. And it just so happens that his favorite game is, throw everything on the floor and jump up and down. At least we’re having fun.

I am working very hard at trying to lean into the chaos that has taken over our household these past few months. After all, the mess is just temporary, right? Eventually kids put their stuff away, don’t they? Isn’t that why we teach them “The Clean-up Song?” I have to laugh because I am sure he will be just like I was as a kid. I would leave plates and bowls in my room until fossils formed. I used to leave empty soda cans wedged in between couch cushions. This must definitely be karma.

As frustrating and exhausting as it is and as tired as I am from yelling “Nooooo! Don’t touch that,” I love my son so much it hurts.

Watching him run around squealing with excitement is magical. He is so happy 95% of the time and he just wants to play and giggle as much as possible. He looks at me like I am the most amazing person in the world, and he always wants to be close to me. I couldn’t wait for him to get out of the infant stage so he could curl up next to me and fall asleep. That has finally happened and it’s my favorite part of the day.

But at the same time, I wasn’t really prepared for just how close he would want to be. Any sense of personal space that I once had is gone. Sometimes he crawls on top of me just to be near me. If I am reading a book or on my phone, he will grab it and throw it. He does this of course in the gentlest of ways…not. He tries to lean into me and ends up headbutting me with his giant head. It hurts. He hugs me and lets me kiss him, but he often returns that affection with pinches and slaps to my face. Apparently, this is also common so I shouldn’t be too concerned. He doesn’t talk yet, so this is just how he communicates his feelings. I can’t wait for the hitting/biting/pinching phase to end. The snuggling I hope never ends.

Before I know it, Will is going to be talking and I can’t even imagine what he has to tell us. For now, this is the stage we are in: the messy, the sticky and the slappy. Like everything else with kids, it’s just a stage and we move through the good and bad aspects. It definitely has its drawbacks, but there are also moments where I wish I could freeze time and hold him in my arms forever. So long as he doesn’t hit me