by SHANKARI CHANDRAN
My two and a half year old son Sid can be a real pain in the arse sometimes. He seems to be embracing both The Terrible Twos and The Threenager personas simultaneously and with enthusiasm.
He can be heard saying regularly “I gonna beat you Poo Poo,” followed by a triple sashay kick to the reproductive organs of anyone in his way. We’ve asked the older kids not to watch Ninjago around him any more and Husband has taken to walking around the house with his hands over his balls, without any other purpose in mind, honestly.
Out of all of our four children, nature has clearly left the strongest-willed until last, perhaps realising that if we’d had him first there might have been no others.
On the weekend we took the kids to a family birthday party. It was chaotic and raucous as children’s parties should be and when it was time to go I told Sid that we needed to put our shoes on and go to the car. Sid said “OK Poo Poo,” and before I could make our exit, I realised I couldn’t find my car keys.
After a good ten minutes of searching bags, shoes, toilets and all the other obvious places one might leave car keys, my cousin said “Where’s Sid?”
I started to look around but not anxiously. The house had been secure and Sid never goes anywhere without me. He can be a limpet sometimes, fixing himself to my body like an uncoordinated third leg. I was looking but not finding, and I could feel my throat starting to close in that way it does when I’m afraid, when another cousin called me on my mobile to say she had Sid.