Picture this: a Doctor’s waiting room, brimming with potential patients, three of which are babies. One sits quietly on its parent’s lap, munching happily on a sandwich and daintily sipping a drink. One sleeps soundly in its pram, oblivious to all going on around it. And then there is the other one… who proceeds to treat the confined space as a personal playpen, or amusement park of sorts, sprinting from end to end and vociferously letting its presence be felt.

Well, you can guess which child was mine. Hurricane Harrison strikes again!

Some simply label it “spirited”, others heartily remark he is just mischievous. I class it as bloody exhausting… and at times, plain embarrassing! But enlighten me please, how do you exactly reason with a one year old?

Sure, its all fun and games to witness until someone’s baby is trying to sleep next to my son; his eager little personality keen to explore what’s under the cover in the pram next to his. And amusing, yes, til you spend half an hour chasing your son away from the door way in an attempt to avoid him being trodden on by incoming appointments, or that nasty staircase that lays in wait. I’m sure the other parent was looking at me with a slightly smug expression as his toddler sat perfectly still in his lap, content to eat and not terrorise the other patrons, unlike my son… And the other patients find it entertaining for, oh, the first 10 minutes (watching me run myself ragged is obviously such a joy) but then they usually turn and I’m acutely aware of the icy stares of disdain that are cast my way.

I fear things will only exacerbate from here… He is only going to grow ever more curious, ever more adventurous, so perhaps I must just come to terms with the fact I am mother to a boy who is, by nature, a playful, overly active little person who has no concept of understanding the joys of what its like to be “still”… The upside is it’s a cracking good way to stay in shape, but the antithesis means I’m always bloody tired and almost dread the event of going anywhere in which entails my son sitting still in his pram for a period of time.

So do I just accept and embrace this penchant for inquisitiveness and impishness? Sure Harrison is only 12 months old and, being a boy, he genetically predisposed to high levels of energy to burn… I just don’t want to be “that parent” who never gets invited back anywhere because she has a son who is harder to reign in than drunk Sydney Roosters football players!
Ah well, at least life will never be dull with my beautiful, busy boy…