My toddler is just too independent

Slow down, parents of newborns. I was once the same as all of you, constantly comparing your blob of baby to the other blobs that come to visit.

‘‘Oh she isn’t rolling yet, but she will soon.’’

It’s the silent competition all new parents have, even if they say they don’t care.

If you hear about little Bobby walking at just 10 months then you sort of want your little blob to at least be crawling.

It’s in our DNA. Yeah, we love them and are proud of whatever they do but the baby milestone race does add some excitement. That feeling when you tell a baby group your kid is crawling and realise they’re the first! Boom! Yeah!

Externally it’s a throwaway statement but internally you are jumping for joy, pumping fists, pointing at the other parents and gloating loudly. Internally your baby is unaware and most likely just processing more poop.

I got over my baby milestones six years ago. Once our first kid had ticked off all the major baby/toddler milestones I was able to sit back and reflect. Reflect on how I wish I hadn’t internally been so competitive – because to be honest, a blob-of-jelly baby is the best baby a parent could ask for.

You leave the room, they are still there. They don’t roll out the front door. They don’t roll down the grass bank, they just sit there. Like a blob. Truth is we want them to be a blob for as long as possible. Yeah, independence is an empowering idea but it’s hard to keep up with.

A crawling baby is gone as soon as you turn your back. A crawling baby hides your things: your wallet, your keys, your sandwich. A crawling baby investigates giant bird poos at the park and quickly realises the purple-brown stuff is not food.

Crawling turns to standing – standing to touch the TV screen over and over again, painting its very expensive LCD bits with bogey bits of their own.

Then comes walking.

Walking leads to running. Running leads to bruises and broken bones and that leads to expensive after-hours A&E visits.

I’m an ‘‘experienced’’ father now. When number three, Nala, was born, we totally understood that there was no need to rush her. Rolling/ crawling/walking babies are 10 times harder to deal with than babies that just take their time.

Problem is, we weren’t the only parents in the house. Nala had two overly involved, overly excited older sisters egging her on every day.

Nala is now two years and two months old and she is fully toilet trained.

That’s not me gloating – that’s one milestone you should always try and sprint towards. I’m a tight arse and as soon as they are out of nappies that means I can get back to buying that fancy expensive peanut butter again. Rolling, crawling and walking saves me no money. Not wearing nappies ever again does.

But her toilet-trained independence is out of control. During the rigorous training routine we clapped our hands and gushed over her doing ‘‘pee-pee on the toilet’’, praised her with over the top ‘‘oh wow, what a big girl!’’

There was so much positive energy surrounding that dunny that now she runs to the toilet every chance she gets. She just wants that attention and praise every time – but c’mon kid, we’ve been helping you to the toilet for more than two months now. Enough is enough.

Every now and then I call her bluff. ‘‘No Nala, no toilet, you just went.’’

She looks at me and pees on the floor.

I know her bladder was empty but her independent stubbornness conjured up urine in less than 1.8 seconds just to spite me.

Having two big sisters to look up to isn’t helping slow this independence thing. Nala climbs anything and everything because she thinks anything they can do she can do better, in a stumbling toddler sort of way.

She scoots faster than a four year-old, she insists on dressing herself even as her head is stuck in her pants leg.

She wants to wipe her own butt even though her tiny T-Rex toddler arms can’t really reach back there and she loses it at every school drop-off because apparently two-yearold Nala is ready for that too.

Yes, I do want my daughters to grow up and become powerful independent women but, for now, can’t we just chill and watch some Teletubbies or something? Dad’s tired.

Once our first kid had ticked off all the major milestones I reflected on how I wish I hadn’t been so competitive.