One of the things they never tell you about parenthood is how much it hurts. And I’m not talking about labour, or breastfeeding, or even those uterine cramps you get while breastfeeding (like a super-fun combination of both discomforts). I’m not even talking about how much it hurts seeing your kid in pain or the fact that you just can’t ever watch a John Lewis Christmas advert without feeling like you’ve been kicked in the sternum.
Nope. I’m talking about when you actually get kicked in the sternum, or head-butted on the nose, or when your child reaches out for something to steady themselves as they get to grips with toddling and that something turns out to be your crotch and suddenly you’re standing in the kitchen wincing like you’ve never winced before because a very small person, has managed to grab, through your clothes, a handful of your pubic hair.
It’s okay though, because at least he didn’t fall over.
I’m talking about that kind of pain.
Nothing in any parenting magazine, book, or website I ever saw before I had a kid prepared me for just how much I get pummelled on a daily basis. To think, I’ve spent my entire adult life not getting kicked in the face and now that happens with distressing regularity.
Yesterday when I was playing with The Master he decided that my nose was interesting and shoved his entire thumb up my left nostril, seemingly to brain depth. If you’ve not had the pleasure, I can report that it’s quite an alarming sensation and I can now no longer remember my EFTPOS PIN. So I wouldn’t recommend it (and thank god for “paywave”).
He’s stomped his foot down with full force on my cheekbone, attempted to gouge out my eyeballs, bitten me on the shoulder, smacked me in the face, pulled my hair, and tried to make my mouth bigger by yanking on it… and that’s just in the last week.
I’ve always been more of a lover than a fighter so I can’t say that I have a lot of physical altercation’s in my past that I can compare this recent onslaught with but I’m pleased with my decision to avoid physical violence because if this is what a one year-old can do to me, what the hell kind of pain and suffering would an adult be able to inflict? Phew. It’s good to be a pacifist.
However this child is so violent it’s almost as though through some weird genetic mutation/exposure to radiation/insert scifi cliche here trickery that I’ve brought unto this world a merciless martial arts wunderkind. Which, if it were a movie would a) kick box office ass and b) look a bit like this…
Yes, I have pasted Jean Claude Van Damme’s face onto my son’s body… what of it?
Now, I expect that The Master isn’t actually uniquely gifted in this area and that most everybody’s little darlings beat the stuffing out of them daily but just to be sure, is it normal to have a Bloodsport baby?
When’s the last time you were bested in a rammy stoush by a supposedly helpless bairn*? Extra points for injuries/war wounds.
*Whoops. Went all Scottish there for a minute. Sorry.
Originally published on Stuff, 03/02/2015
(Feature image, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)