I’ve spent a lot of time with my nearly two-year-old son last week. My kind and lovely husband took our two daughters for a week of skiing in France, leaving me – at my request – at home with Ollie. It was bliss being tied to the schedule of a person whose day looks like this: wake, eat, play, sleep, eat, play, eat, sleep. I didn’t need to consult a calendar to find out what his plans were for the week, make any play-dates, ensure that he had clean sports clothes for the next day, oversee his homework, make his lunchbox or get him anywhere on time. The freedom of only having a baby to look after was completely heady.
Delicious things happened: I was able to read Anna Karenina in the bath while he had his morning nap, write blog posts while he played, take him for leisurely walks in the pram whenever it suited us, visit playgrounds at prime homework time. The house stayed spectacularly clean and tidy, I cooked and froze meals (unheard of, let me assure you), taught myself how to do a podcast, saw four girlfriends, chatted to other girlfriends on the phone, completed one work assignment and did shedloads of washing (washed, ironed AND put away). I was amazed at what I could achieve – without trying overly hard – with only one child in the house.
I also spent some lovely time with my fella. We talked about trains a lot. I took him for walks to see the trains go over the railway bridge. We read train books. We played with his train set. We cuddled under a blanket together and watched his Thomas the Tank Engine DVD. My Ollie, he loves a train.
He also loves to chat and comment on everything around him. I was giggling at someone’s blog (wish I could remember whose, then I’d link to that post), and he said to me: “You crying, Mummy?” I said, “No darling, I’m laughing” and he responded, “Oh, laughing. Ha ha ha” and headed off for some more trains. His dad has noticed that after a week alone with Mummy that his speech has taken off and that he’s making lovely long sentences. It’s great to know I’ve been a good influence on my little lad.
Except for this moment: I’m packing bottles into a shopping bag to take to the grocery store for recycling. Some of the bottles fall to the floor.
“Oh, bloody,” says Ollie. “Bloody howl.”
Charlotte's Web 
February 26, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Ollie has coined the perfect expletive phrase – d’you think he’d mind if I borrowed it. Bloody howl describes exactly what I want to express sometimes!
February 26, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Isn’t it funny, how easy it seems (once there are many) to have only one?
I had that kind of day yesterday, with my baby, thinking all I wanted because no one was talking to me, spending time reading while he took his naps… bliss!
February 26, 2007 at 8:27 pm
What a nice story! I’m a former stay-at-home mom (my kids are 14 and 9 now) and I remember loving days like yours.
February 26, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I’m there with you…when my son went to his great-grandparents’ house for a week, it was amazingly peaceful around here. My daughter played quietly and happily, I didn’t have to choose which chores to get done each day because I could do them all, and there was no bickering or whining (well, not much). A couple of times hubby and I felt really guilty that we weren’t more sorry the boy was away, but then of course when he came home we were glad to have him back.
February 26, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Herschelian, I agree, sometimes all you want to do is have a bloody howl!
Rae, I certainly enjoyed the silence of only one little chatterbox as opposed to three. It was bliss.
Hi Laverne – one day I will be you, back at work, with growing up kids. I do love these baby days but there’s a part of me that relishes knowing that one day I will earn paychecks!
Henitserk, I was thrilled to have my girls back and I’ve been a-huggin’ and a-kissin’ them, but I enjoyed my week hugely. I also had brief moments of guilt at how much fun I was having, but they quickly passed.
February 26, 2007 at 9:12 pm
What absolute bliss, living at the pace of a 2 yr old. I loved this post, and felt nostalgic for the days when I would nap in the afternoon with my toddler, leaving the dishes to pile up. This is my first visit Charlotte, but I will be back, for sure.
February 26, 2007 at 9:41 pm
This post made me laugh and smile in recognition. My life is very similar to this right now (apart from the house being spectacularly tidy…) Kiko would love to compare notes with Ollie on trains and other ta-tas. Yesterday, we had to stop in the middle of the street so that he could watch a big plane ta-ta fly overhead. Aren’t they so cute? I see the world in such a different way now that there’s a little boy around.
I liked: “Bloody howl!” That sounds quite Elizabethan.
February 26, 2007 at 10:22 pm
I have to agree with Herschelian — that is the perfect expletive phrase. Go Ollie!
I’m almost wishing I had a child of my own, to impose some sort of schedule on my day. It’s far too easy to let everything get away from you when you don’t have to attend to someone’s naps, lunch, play. Your time with Ollie sounds so blissful I’m tempted to borrow one of my nephews for a week.
February 27, 2007 at 12:27 am
I loved reading this post. It was a purely vicarious pleasure. I have never had a toddler; I went straight to a 14 1/2 year old abuse survivor. And I surely wanted to bloody howl once in a while!
I have had a pretty relaxed pace today. Only 3 massages, well spaced. We had a luscious time together, followed by a short nap. Then we had leftovers from dinner for lunch with the addition of some grilled tuna steaks. Yum yum. There was even time to get the pea fences up, and since they were up I also deployed the row cover so when the little peas germinate the little birds will be frustrated in their desire to use my pea patch as a smorgasbord. All round a wonderful day.
February 27, 2007 at 3:34 am
How adorable! I’d love to meet Ollie. I, too, have a thing for trains.
February 27, 2007 at 5:38 am
Welcome, Ms Melancholy. I’ve been enjoying your blog very much and recommend it to everyone who trawls past here.
Helen, me too! I hardly ever noticed planes, trains or automobiles and now they are part of my life. Ollie even comments on a plane overhead when we’re inside and can’t see it. I think our boys would get on famously – Ollie could teach Kiko his favourite German word: “Nein!”
Ms HMH, sounds like you’ve been in a blissful place. I have say, toddler bliss was pretty good too. I think it was the lack of deadlines that was so lovely.
Nova, thanks, you and Ollie would have a lot in common. Do you feel strongly about cars too?
February 27, 2007 at 6:29 am
He has the gift of the nutshell, that Ollie..
February 27, 2007 at 6:30 am
Hilarious, I also wanted to say.
February 27, 2007 at 7:54 am
I love “bloody howl” and will use it, if I may.
Speaking as the bob-tail of a large family, what strikes me from this post is how different infancy is if you are the youngest. There were, as my brother pointed out, more photographs of my Big Sis in her first year of life than there were of me in my first twenty.
I vote that Ollie should get more days alone with Charlotte. Begone big sisters! Avaunt! For a whilie anyway.
Aphra.
February 27, 2007 at 8:58 am
LOL A couple of my Sebastian’s first words were ‘four foxes!’ uttered in dismay at anything that went wrong 😉
February 27, 2007 at 9:11 am
Yes, Emma, the nutshell. He’s got it.
Aphra, thank goodness for digital cameras. I don’t photograph Ollie’s every fleeting expression as I did with Lily, but I do photograph him almost daily. But yes, I could do with more time alone with him and he with me. It was so much fun!
Ash, I’m loving the four foxes!
February 27, 2007 at 10:21 am
Fantastic – it does sound like you had a lovely time. Reminds me of when my son thought that ‘boiling’ was a general kind of adjective and used to describe activities as ‘boiling hard’. Everyone thought it was an adapted expletive!
February 27, 2007 at 12:15 pm
It is wonderful that you made the podcasts about the Queen’s underwear. Since listening to it, I can read your blog posts and “hear” your voice writing them. How nice is that!
February 27, 2007 at 12:22 pm
It’s interesting how a day alone with a two year-old goes from being full-on with no time for chores when it’s your first, to being a rest cure when it rarely occurs with your third. Maybe it’s because they are trained to survive with a whole lot less attention than the first and you are well trained to achieve a higher degree of multi tasking and efficiency…
February 27, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Hmm, I like that “boiling hard”, Litlove. It’s cute.
Thanks Lilalia. And by going to BlogHer, I can see your photograph, which is better!
Kit, you are so right. My mother advocates the “judicious ignoring” style of parenting, which I think I’ve only perfected properly with my third. He is so easy-going and I am so relaxed that it’s a good combination.
February 27, 2007 at 8:45 pm
That bloody howl story reminds me of one day when I was driving into town with my younger son aged 3 or 4 and ended up in a huge traffic jam, with cars inching along, then stopping, inching along again.
After a while there was a sigh from the back of the car: “I think Daddy would say bloody”.
We continued inching along for another ten minutes. There was an even bigger sigh: “I think he would say hell as well now”.
How are you supposed to stop laughing?
February 27, 2007 at 9:53 pm
A, that’s just hilarious – I love the way his sentences were so politely structured. When Ollie committed his howler, I was trying to keep a straight face because I don’t want him to know how damn cute it is and start repeating it to his visiting grandmother for instance, but I was cracking up inside.
February 27, 2007 at 10:07 pm
That’s made me think about how I really do love the times when I get dudelet to myself. There’s 45 minutes in the morning three days a week when supermum has gone to work and I’ve yet to deliver him to the childminders. This week it’s been snuggling under the blanket he’s been dragging to the front room, cutting up paper, scribbling in his magic colour book or watching bits of Chicken Little (which comes with an additional audio commentary.
And it’s so difficult not to swear in front of children. Especially when they’re so funny imitating you!