Last Christmas (2011) we bought this toy kitchen for Roman. For his first Christmas I'd mostly purchased wooden puzzle toys, 'baby' toys, and this pretend kitchen signified something for me; that I wasn't buying 'baby' toys and that we were making strides into toddler hood with Roman.
No matter how much you try not to be that mum who recalls the babyhood and wants to hold onto the sweetness of it a little longer you end up being that mum. I think the harder you push not to be the blubbering mess of emotions, the easier it comes. I've let few and far things really get to me in my life; I didn't even cry at my own wedding, faked tears at my big brother's wedding and you won't find me crying at funerals - and I don't know why. It's just 'me.' But the one thing that does get to me is Roman growing up before my eyes. The one thing that really tugs on my heart is this boy and the vast changes he's made since Christmas, 2011.
When we un-boxed this kitchen, a few days after Christmas, Roman wasn't really interested in it like I thought he would be. Sure he played with it but he wasn't really 'into' it at all. In fact he used to go between using it as a garage for the one truck and two cars he owned (given to him by other people) and knocking it down; giving him a real thrill to see our horrified reactions to his destruction. So after the 20th attempt of him trying to completely oliberate the thing I decided it would be best moved into his bedroom, where it has been housed for a good few months and has been relatively untouched.
I decided to move it back into the living room and so far Roman has been really enjoying it again, much to my delight. He quickly scampers to it in the mornings, reaching for spoons, forks, cups and his 'soya burger.' My boy is happy, my heart is happy.
Though he wasn't happy here when I announced he'd have to tidy up his kitchen so he could eat real food.
