Right from the beginning Moglet Number 2 was different from Moglet Number 1. Moglet Number 1 has always been a creative, sensitive and artistic soul. He walked and talked early, quickly showing a love and a flare for dressing up and role play. He has emerged as talented artist and actor. Watch out for his name in lights, MOGLET NUMBER 1 will be all over the West End I guarantee.
But, as I say Moglet Number 2 was different. He was a solid baby. He didn't walk particularly late, he didn't talk particularly late but he was full on.
And he knew his own mind. One such example, which has gone down in family folk lore, is Blue-Cow-Gate. Every time we visited Grandma and Grandad’s house, Grandma would spend hours, (I mean hours! Bless her!) indulging Moglet Number 1 ’s desire for acting out stories. Once in the middle of a prolonged Peter Pan episode, Grandma and Moglets 1 and 2 were on the back bed a.k.a pirate ship, when to put it bluntly, all hell broke loose. Carrying a very tiny Moglet Number 3 in my arms ,I went to see what was up.
Moglet Number 1, a.k.a Peter Pan, was standing on the bed, almost in tears, hands on hips, looking more indignant than any 4 year old has the right to.
“Tell him, Grandma, tell him. He has to be a Lost Boy!!”
Grandma, a.k.a Wendy then proceed to explain, keeping her face as straight as she could, that Moglet Number 2 was very keen to join the band of pirates but only if he could be a Blue Cow!
And nothing, but nothing would budge him. He was 2 and bit and already ploughing his own, very quirky furrow. With the added benefit of driving his brother completely wild.
His first word was ‘Cat’. It was repeated loudly and often, whilst pursuing the real Moggie at high speed from the room. And if he caught said cat he didn't stroke it, he grabbed, great handfuls of thick hair.
“Gentle” I would say, modelling ‘ good stroking’
“Gentle!” he would nod, making his face and voice soft, but still he would grab, if anything tighter. The harder he tried to be gentle, the harder his grip would be. For the record, I should point out that neither of our cats, the wonderful Eric and Ernie, ever scratched my Moglet or tried to leave home. They loved and accepted him for what he was. So did our Labrador, the stoic and tremendously greedy Henry, upon whom Moglet Number 2 would bounce when watching the telly. They adored each other and more than once Moglet Number 2 fell asleep curled up in Henry’s bed.
If Moglet Number 1 was talkative then Moglet Number 2 was just plain loud!!! He talked loudly, helped slightly by removing his tonsils and giving him grommets to solve chronic glue ear, but he moved loudly too. Moving from one room to the next seemed to involve much crashing and banging, bumping and bashing. He was all about the gross motor skills and sod the fine motor. Why turn something if you could bash it, why tiptoe if you could run. I took him to Tumble Tots, and the first bit of the session where we sang and “Warmed up our fingers’” was visibly torture for him. He couldn't wait to be up and on the ‘big boy’ slides and ladders.
He would open and close doors with such force that I feared for the handles and the hinges. When he put cups down on the table their contents sloshed and spilt. He walked around looking behind him and squeezed through gaps that didn't exist. Bath times, especially in the short wearing days of summer, became about me silently counting the bumps and bruises.
Moglet Number 2 never travelled far without a tractor in his hand. He knew that names of all the models and makes, all the attachments, where on our journeys up and down the country we were likely to see them. Tractors were his life… tractors and mud.
That was another thing; dirt was attracted to Moglet Number 2 , and he to it. I still to this day say that you could put him in a empty, sterile room and he would walk out looking like he had been down a coal mine! On the day he was a Page Boy for my sister, I literally dressed him in my mum’s front porch as the wedding car was pulling up outside, so terrified was I of disaster! Moglet Number 2 still loves anything wet, sticky, slimy, gooey or gross. The first time I made him a tray of cornflour gloop he looked at me as though he had found the Holy Grail.
My guess is that none of this sounds particularly out of the ordinary. My first two boys were so different though that I couldn't help to compare them, and the first seeds of doubt were planted. Friends, relations, health visitors, they all said the same. “ He’s just a boy! He’ll grow out of. Just wait and see.”
So I did. I put that nagging little voice, very willingly in it’s box and got on with growing my happy little brood. I was grateful for what I had, revelled in the Moglets individual personalities, Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4.
And I waited.
4 Comments
sam
5/21/2015 06:51:20 am
Love it live it live it , I hope you share the rest of your journey with mogglets 123&4,😊😊.
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Herding Moggies
5/21/2015 06:55:41 am
Thank you. We will keep going!
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Tracy F
5/21/2015 03:37:38 pm
Loving your blog!
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herdingmoggies
5/23/2015 09:21:41 pm
Thank you Tracy 😀
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CategoriesRachelI am a Mum of four fantastic children (or Moglets), one of whom just happens to have Dyspraxia. ArchivesP.s The RSS Feed button is the FOLLOW button!!! In case you are technically challenged like me!! Or follow us on Twitter: @rmc19
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