Can I be the first to admit that a dawdling toddler tests my patience the most!! Much more than a playroom that gets messed up ten thousand times a day. Seriously the amount of time it takes us to get to places. Every Monday, we go to a playgroup that’s literally on the other end of our street and would take only 2 min to get to for an adult walking at normal speed. We leave the house 20 minutes before it starts and we’re still 15 minutes late go figure.
While it’s something I totally struggle with, I’m trying my best not to see her as a dawdling toddler. We adults see anything that takes longer than it should as an unnecessary detour that brings us further away from our destination. But to these tiny humans, the journey is so much more than the destination. Sometimes, the journey IS the destination. She’s not planning towards the future. She’s immersed in the right now. She’s a toddler fascinated by her world. She stops to pick and smell the wild flowers. Of course she has to choose the best looking ones, pluck off their petals while counting them and then squish them to mulch in her hands. She hears a loud noise and looks up to see the planes flying overhead. She sees dogs running in the park across the street and counts two, no wait, there’s three of them, two small white and one big black one. They’re fighting or are they playing? She hears the roaring of a bus arriving and points to it and exclaims “bus” in excitement. She sees a school and notices a “sandpit” within the compounds that’s used for long jumps. And just as we reach the entrance of playgroup and mummy gives thanks that we’ve finally reached, she stops yet again and points out the letter Y (for YMCA).
So while I work on developing patience, I’m just gonna leave the house 20 minutes earlier whenever we can because lets face it, with a baby and a dawdling toddler who takes a millennium to get ready to leave the house 😂🤣, sometimes it’s just not possible. That way, I won’t stress as much about being late and I don’t have to yell out “come on, let’s goooooooo” about ten thousand times.
