Things that have upset my toddler during the snow

Now, Oliver is a wonderfully reasonable young rascal the majority of the time. As long as people bow down to his will and he has a steady supply of snacks, then everything is fine and dandy. However on occasion life can throw things up that are designed seemingly with the sole purpose of frustrating and thwarting Olephants. They may not seem major issues to the untrained eye but they are definitely serious business.

The situations and things that frustrate and thwart Ollie seem to have undergone an exponential increase and become exacerbated somewhat by the weather situation. The snow sealing us in our very tiny village and house unsurprisingly is not something that Ollie will accept as a reason not to be out and about. Some of the more serious things that are sent to try Ollie’s patience include but are not limited to:

• This Duplo Elephant. This annoyance is because it’s head moves. Ollie does not approve of this. He has also been annoyed by the fact it’s legs don’t move and more specifically that I won’t make them move for him. Let’s ignore the fact that I can’t. He’s reasonable and I’m unhelpful.

• These Stacking boxes. They have provided great amusement for a long period. So much so that we have two back up sets for when they reach their inevitable end. Unfortunately this end was reached this morning when a pudgy foot plummeted, accompanied by a scream of ‘stomp’ through one of them. This unexpected disaster was bad enough (I mean who’d have thought stamping on something relatively weak could break it?), however what really offended Oliver was the fact that neither mum nor dad possessed time travel capabilities and therefore could not magically un-break the box.

• Not being allowed to use the tenderiser on more than just biscuits. We decided to eat up a bit of time by making some Rocky road. Ollie was utterly engaged with his very important biscuit crusher role, so much so in fact that once biscuits were taken away he continued to practice his hammering technique on anything within reach including me, a colander and a Pyrex dish. Upon removal of the tenderiser from his clutches a black look with promises of dire retribution, was levelled very firmly my way.

Myriad other trials and tribulations have also raised their ugly heads to target Ollie but luckily he’s managing not to let it get him down too much. As his handlers however, by this point, we’re 48hours in and I think it’s safe to say we don’t pay nursery enough for the mental and physical abuse they must suffer at the hands of our son. I will admit that watching my slightly broken wife attempting to muster the will for yet another round of ‘Old MacDonald’ to sate Ollie’s demands for the ‘ee i ee i oh song’, was funny the first 20 times. However it’s devolved into a form of psychological torture that’s hard to watch. Pose and I are beginning to actively twitch at the mention of any animal or animal related noise.

On the plus side I do like a moan and he is utterly delightful in between all of this. I actually think we may be seeing signs of a human being beginning to creep through. We had a lovely jaunt to co-op with him and Ozzie dog. No incidents of being a Toad from the Olephant at all, even in the shop he wasn’t too bad.

Also, last night Ollie actually said sorry when he bit my toe…why he was biting my toe is another issue altogether, but small steps. Anyway, fingers crossed we can make it out of the village tommorow.