A child’s eyes

I’ve written before about the fact that Charlie and I are lucky enough to be able to parent equally. We’ve both been able to reduce our hours to a four day week so that we each get a full day on our own with Little Man. It’s been wonderful and I’ve really been appreciating it lately because it’s coming to an end soon. (My parental leave is running out and my precious weekdays with Little Man are drawing to a close. I’ve been trying not to think about it!)

But today, while making playdough animals with Little Man, I got a great reminder of just what an impact this year has had on him, and his relationship with Charlie too. And the next time I’m lamenting the lack of extra spending money this year, hopefully I’ll think of this afternoon, and what the year has meant for Little Man.

We were making playdough birdies you see. First we made a big blue bird, and then we used the remaining blue playdough to make a small bird. Whenever we make playdough creatures we always like to play little games and tell stories with them afterwards. So no different to usual, I started narrating the story of our playdough birds.

“Once upon a time there was a great big Mammy bird,” I began, “and there was a small little baby bird. ‘Hello Mammy Bird!’ ‘Hello Baby Bird!'”

“Oh no!” Little Man interrupted. “Oh no!” he shouted again, clearly distraught.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, completely puzzled.

“No Daddy!” he told me, crestfallen. “No Daddy!” he repeated emphatically.

No Daddy indeed. We had made a Mammy Bird and a Baby Bird and didn’t make a Daddy Bird.

I think Daddy plays such a prominent role in Little Man’s life that he couldn’t imagine Mammy Bird and Baby Bird were complete without him. It stopped me in my tracks. Immediately we took another colour and made a Daddy Bird and all was well.