"If It Ain't Broke...."

I have been asked by various friends and family members, just why it is that I insist on treating my 9 month old baby boy like a puppy. Why do I allow him to eat his meals off the floor for instance...? Why do I not freak out when I find him perched over the toilet bowl, happily splashing his chubby fists in the toilet water.....? Why do I not run over in a panic when I find him chewing my slippers......?

Well, the honest truth is probably something to do with utter exhaustion. However there is also an element of inevitability. Having gone through this same stage with his older brother Egg not so long ago, I suppose I realise that he will pass through it and become a normal, healthy, functioning little boy in time.

I now realise why follow-on siblings are given less 'attention' and are treated less strictly. It's not because parents care less, it's because having seen that the other one(s) did the same things and turned out relatively ok, there is not the incentive to throw a spanner in the works and try anything different.

Now i realise that if everyone in life had this same attitude, then there would be precious little advancement in say the search for a cure for cancer, or the pressing on with global efforts to make the world more 'green'. But when it comes down to simple, old-fashioned child-rearing, well, the phrase 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' comes to mind.

Egg is three years old, very well spoken, well adjusted and a darling little boy all round. Even though this may be due mostly to good genes and the obscene amount of love and care he's received from all and sundry in his short little life, it still provides a vast amount of reassurance.

I am sure little Dumps will turn out just as lovely and no amount of toilet bowl swishing and dirty kitchen floor licking is going to change that. As a popular television commercial for antibacterial spray tells us (and television is ALWAYS right), did you know that a kitchen counter has ten times as much bacteria as a toilet seat?

So there you go. Safe on both fronts.