Please Don’t
Play
in the Toilet
What is the matter with baby boys?
Don’t they like to play with toys?
Why would they rather spend time in the loo?
Washing their hands in the watery blue
What is the matter with two-year old boys?
Apart from the time they spend flushing their toys
Why do they dress up in spider man clothes?
Rescuing teddies while picking their nose
What is the matter with boys who are three?
Toilets are places for doing a wee
But they all insist on the sunny outdoors
And run to the lemon tree dropping their drawers
What is the matter with boys who are four?
Leaving their toys and their clothes on the floor
Spitting and shooting with guns made of sticks
Scaring the dog with their spider man tricks
What is the matter with five-year old boys?
Driving their mums up the wall with their noise
Blatantly breaking all of the rules
God bless the nannies, teachers and schools
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007