petite anglaise

The first thing Tadpole has said to me every morning for the past two weeks – because she is nothing if not predictable – is:

“Bébé cats?”

It’s my own stupid fault. One Sunday morning, at the appointed hour for Maisy Mouse, a ritual whereby Mr Frog and I transfer our pyjama clad, half-slumbering bodies from bed to sofa, drifting in and out of a rodent-infested sleep while Tadpole squawks with delight at her video.

One of the episodes is entitled ‘cats’, and tells the story of a stray cat which makes itself at home in Maisy’s laundry basket. Maisy wakes up to a chorus of miaowing in the morning, only to find a litter of kittens in among her undergarments.

I don’t know quite what possessed me to mention to Tadpole a whole two weeks ago that one of mummy’s friends has a cat, which has baby cats, just like in Maisy. And that we would be going to see them. Soon.

Because of course Tadpole has not yet developed any notion of time. In Tadpole-time, everything is happening right now, in the present. Our conversations are limited to the subject of what she is in the process of doing, or what she wants to do, right now. There is no point whatsoever enquiring what she has been up to with the childminder on any given day (a pity, as I would like to know more), or what she ate for lunch. Words like ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’ and ‘weekend’ hold no meaning.

So imagine the mess I have got myself into by mentioning the cats, when they were bald, blind and not very interesting at all, and would remain that way for at least a fortnight. At that stage, to all intents and purposes, they were unvisitable.

Hence our daily discussion along the following lines:

Tadpole, hesitantly: “Va voir bébé cats?”

Me, patiently: “Soon, darling, they are still too small”

Tadpole, more forcefully: “Go see BÉBÉCATS?”

Me, calmly but firmly : “Not yet. We’ll go at the weekend.”

Tadpole, stamping her feet and seemingly convinced that if she shouts it loud enough, it WILL happen: “VA. VOIR. BÉBÉ. CATS!”

Bidding my patience farewell and resorting to similar tactics in the (vain) hope of making myself understood “NOT. YET. NO. BABY. CATS.”

Silence.

Tadpole frowns. I can almost see her thinking. Then,

“BABY CATS!”

Desperate measures are called for.

“Hey, shall we go in the kitchen and see if we can find some biscuits?”

I think it may be time for me to invest in the book ‘Toddler Taming: A Survival Guide for parents’, because my last line of resistance, although effective, is likely to contribute to rising levels of obesity in France.

Thankfully, baby cats are go for tomorrow. What worries me now, is that one visit will never be enough. Am I doomed never to hear the end of this?

With the benefit of hindsight, I realise I should have just gone to visit them in secret, unaccompanied. To be honest, I was only using Tadpole as a rather transparent pretext to go cuddle some cute little fluffy kitties myself.

Serves me right.

update:

We went, we stroked, we managed to come home empty handed. But guess what Tadpole’s first words were the morning after?

I tiptoe into Tadpole’s room and kneel by her new bed, where she is sleeping peacefully, surrounded by her favourite teddies. I can hear her slow, regular breathing (with a hint of snoring, caused by her blocked nose), and bend to smell the baby shampoo on her honey-coloured curls, noticing a flicker behind her eyelids, which I take to mean she is dreaming. Tears stream silently down my face.

I go back into the living room, where Mr Frog is in his habitual evening position, lying on the chaise longue in front of the window watching TV.

“She looks too grown up!” I wail. “I feel like we’re forcing her to grow up too quickly. She’s not even two yet, and we’re already dismantling her cot…”

“Mais non, n’importe quoi, bien sûr qu’elle est prête, elle s’est endormie ravie de son nouveau lit. We’re not forcing her into anything. And anyway, it was your idea, n’est-ce pas?”

I blow my nose loudly and start clearing up the toys and remnants of Tadpole’s dinner from her new mini table and chairs, which she is now using instead of her highchair. Provided, that is, that I sit on the other chair opposite her, which I suspect will not prolong the life of that particular piece of furniture, given I weigh five or six times more than your average infant.

One of the things I find hardest to judge as a parent is when Tadpole is ready for something new. So I end up measuring her against other children, which I know you are not really supposed to do. People I know with slightly older toddlers have bought beds, so I thought we should. Keeping up with the Jones’s. The fact that Tadpole could almost get her leg over the barrier, ballerina style, seemed to suggest that she was outgrowing her cot, but as she goes to bed wearing a straitjacket sleeping bag anyhow, once that is firmly fastened, she’d have to pull a Houdini-like stunt in order to make her escape. The sleeping bag, and the safety barrier on the side of the new bed, are cunningly designed to prevent her from deciding that she would rather play with her train set, or pay mummy and daddy a visit in the middle of the night. Nevertheless I don’t doubt it is only a matter of time before I am awoken by an almighty crash, whereupon I will find Tadpole standing on her head, cocooned legs in the air.

When I pause to think how far we’ve come, I simply cannot get my head around how quickly Tadpole is learning and changing. The progress is so gradual; it is only when I conjure up an image of her crawling in reverse gear this time last year, that I feel overwhelmed by the speed of it all. Back then, she babbled cheerful nonsense, devoid of any actual English or French words, but now she can recite ‘Mary Mary quite contrary’ (glossing over some of the words, like a French speaker doing an approximate rendition of an English pop song, parrot fashion, not fully understanding the meaning of the lyrics). This progress is bittersweet, like the joys and constraints of motherhood itself: on the one hand I look forward impatiently to the day when she will be potty trained, but on the other, I am nostalgic for the snuffly, terrifyingly needy baby animal she was, not so long ago.

And, if I’m honest, I feel slightly guilty for spending weekdays apart from her, unable to savour every minute to the full.