Sometimes I look at my son and think, when will you ever grow older? The question — a wish, a desperate plea inside my mind — comes at the end of the day, when my patience has been spent, when his toddler self will accept nothing, and he’ll flail angrily no matter the situation at hand; a fork given when requested, a glass of water offered, a stuffed bunny fetched when asked. Yet often in the next breath, I’ll find that he’s begging for a cuddle, pleading, “Need snuggle” and as I settle back into the rocking chair with him curled up in my lap, head resting against my chest, I think — pray, practically — to please never grow older, please stay this way forever.

That’s the difficult balance of mothering a toddler; toddlers are like wild ponies, cute, except they kick and bite and you just want to contain them, please dear god, please could you not get into every possibly nook and cranny of the house, please could you play with the toys we got you instead of finding a clump of dog hair to happily taste instead. Truly, when will you ever grow older? Yet there you go again, tossing the clump of dog hair aside to reach up, hug my neck, beg for a hug, a kiss, a cuddle, and I am reduced again to asking how much longer I will enjoy the company of such a cuddlebug. 

Are toddlers sent to test us, push us to our limits only to discover that the limit for love rests further than we ever thought possible? I mentioned to a friend the other evening as we compared Terrible Toddler notes that perhaps toddlers are like small versions of the Iditarod, that epic sled dog race that stretches across the barren icy ground of Alaska, spanning eight to fifteen days of harsh, unrelenting cold.

But along with it, I can only imagine that the Iditarod is more than freezing misery. Surely, joy must be an aspect of it too — the furry bodies of dogs, their big hearts, the feeling of accomplishing something beyond the average. A feeling of being breathlessly alive.

I can’t say that parenting a toddler leaves me breathlessly alive, not gonna lie on that one. But the joy — that’s something stickier (stickier even than a toddler post-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich). As I fall into my own bed each night, hoping and praying I don’t hear the wails of a suddenly-awake little one fill my ears, there rests the deeper knowledge: that if they do wail, and I am required to put my feet on the cold floor, to trudge upstairs to a bedroom, to pick up a child and cuddle them in the rocking chair, its creaking forming its own soft rhythmic song in the night — that this will not be a dreary chore. I will be tired — bone-tired — but there will be a feeling of contented joy blossoming in my chest as a little mouth breathes softly, falls asleep clutching my soft bathrobe, and I will lift their small body back into bed, tuck the stuffed bunny beneath their arms, and duck out of the room, knowing that this — this was not a chore, but something deeper, something ancient and lovely.

Grueling, but lovely. Terrible but nothing I would beg to end.

Grow older someday, dear one, but not yet. Not yet. Not just yet.