Travels with tiddler.

 Bewtixmas and the art of transitioning. 

Drifting through life in that strange place between Christmas and New years, Betwixmas, I always find myself entering; reflection phase. I actually quite like this odd, deliciously timeless part of the year where nobody has any idea what day it is and everyone adopts the eating schedule of a hobbit with a particularly vivacious appetite, for some however it is a painful time of unstructured waiting. A transitional period dragged out across too many days. 

Prior to Christmas and birthdays I like to encourage my son to have a small clearout. This is not led by me, I don’t follow him around with a bin bag and threats and I would never clear out behind his back but instead gently -sometimes hopefully- suggest that it might be desirable to clear the way for new toys and donate others so that children can benefit from what has served him. In past years, this has been largely unsuccessful with him clinging onto even the randomest of items. 

Many of the earlier transitions, donating the baby mat we lay under for many hours gazing up at the lights and being momentarily hypnotised by the soothing music, have been more parent-led. At one or two years of age, although verbal, he was not capable of saying mummy I don’t need this babymatt and stack of shape sorters anymore please donate it. He simply stopped using them and the time had come to remove them. In similar fashion I have found myself on a continuous conveyor belt of transitions since giving birth some are less noticeable and some, like the stopping of breastfeeding or the removal of the steriliser from the Kitchen, or the sudden lack of need for a pushchair are much more notable. 

As an adult, I have experienced transitions throughout my life, of course that doesn't mean that they are necessarily always easier to deal with. On the contrary many have been tough for me to handle, particularly ones pertaining to my darling little son. However the fact that I have seen and experienced so many does equip me with the foresight to understand what is approaching, about to happen or at the very least has just happened. I can recognise and identity that a transition has or is going to take place and therefore am able to label it and understand that however I might be feeling (joy that the fruits of my womb can now use the toilet instead of nappies, sadness that I will now only have slow lazy mornings with him on weekends and holidays) is due to the transition. 

It occurs to me that there is numerous literature on transitions that you will experience as a parent or indeed an adult. I have a friend who recently got married and she found herself approaching a strange blue period in the aftermath. She could recognise and understand this and reach out to us and discover that whilst elated at being married to her best friend, everyone had experienced this post come down of wedding high. A quick google search would provide you with further reading on the subject and also on how one might overcome this rollercoaster. The support is there, in many forms. Likewise, every stage of pregnancy, motherhood and parent life can usually be supplemented with useful, mostly, reading and support on what you are going through. If we choose to be, we can always be educated on the transitional periods of life, it might not help but sometimes it is good to simply know that it’s not just you. This really got me thinking about our children and their transitions. 

We prepare our children for school, we provide transitional booklets and discussions and, in my case, read every single book possible to them about ‘Lucy and Tom’ or ‘The colour monster’ starting school, using a potty or losing a tooth. Yet as I watch my son this year, I realise that we don't prepare them for all the transitions, not really. I have overlooked some and passed them by without even considering that he may be experiencing a need to acknowledge, recognise and name what is transpiring before him. 

The first time that I really stop and take notice of this potential need is during this ‘betwixmass’ period. As we head out of Christmas 2023 and head towards a new year, I watch my son dump out the contents of his big old toy box. It is a large wooden thing that I proudly purchased to house those big baby toys in the first months of parenthood, the box’s contents has evolved and transitioned since then; housing building blocks, train track, Duplo, giant robust push along cars, kitchen utensils, Paw patrol vehicles and more recently Batman and Star Wars toys. To my son, this chest is just a box. A vessel for storing the larger toys that do not fit into the more organised chaos of his toy drawers and shelves and occasionally it has also been a boat or racecar. To me the chest is symbolic of a time that seemed to last forever but now looks like only a few short years of our lives. 

Shortly after his seventh birthday my son had decided to get rid of his toy kitchen. This beautiful little wooden kitchen that has provided me with many a cappuccino and slice of avocado toast, chosen from the lovingly hand drawn menu emblazoned with ‘Oscars Kitchen’ that I had made for him, and paid for with an odd assortment of plastic and wooden money with teddy bears and alligators in place of kings and queens on the surface. To me this wooden kitchen is a reminder of my time with him as a stay at home mum, it’s a reminder of good and tough times, of make-believe and learning. I have used this kitchen to create invitations to play; firework factories, the north pole and the Christmas post office. It has been the Witches kitchen and Love potion station. My son has almost got rid of it twice before now but quickly changed his mind and placed the paper menu carefully in front of me, a renewed interest in serving me delights from his little space. This time though, it’s a goner. He is adamant, even a new invitation to play doesn't sway him. I can't push him, I wont. It wouldn't be healthy to inflict my yearning to hold on to a time that is now in the past, instead I must acknowledge and respect that he is ready. The kitchen goes. 

It is just the beginning. 

What follows the kitchen is every little reminder of that sleepless, cosy, whirlwind time of our lives, bear hunt puzzles and wooden train track, Paw Patrol leftovers and fancy dress tutus that he loved to spin around in. He discards every item with a nonchalance that I admire. He is truly ready to part with these things, no question, and I dutifully donate or sell on everything he hands to me with conviction.

It is not until this betwixmas period however, that I see a glimmer of uncertainty in him. Completely unprompted by me, he decides he is ready to get rid of the small basket of bath toys that has been sitting in the corner of the bathroom since we moved into our house four years previously. He declares that he is ‘kinda done playing in the bath now’, that he has done it for so long and now he really just likes to relax in there and chill. The confident way he delivers this message with a casual shrug of someone much older causes a prickle in the eyeballs but I have no choice but to agree. As I am scooping up the basket however, he says; “Anyway they are kinda babyish…arent they?” The way that he adds the question on the end pulls at my heart in a devastating way. For all intents and purposes he is way older than I ever was at seven years old and despite his youthful appearance he is sometimes akin to a small old man in so many ways but the fact that he is seeking some kind of reassurance here makes me think. Perhaps he is going through something here, at seven years old he is daily affected by the external influences of his peers opinions and of other grown ups who might be quick to state that things are more suitable for babies and not ‘big boys’, I realise in that moment that he is experiencing a transition here and maybe he isn't aware. He is seeking reassurance, confirmation that he is at a crossroads in his life. To be rid of these reminders of his early years that no longer serve him, yet also unsure if he is ready or if he just should be getting rid of them because they must be for babies. He is stretched between a place of being too big for some things and not big enough for others, a limbo period in his life. I don't influence his decision, I am certainly not the type of person who would every inform him that anything was for babies - apart from the time when he asked me for a pouch of baby food because he said it looked nice- so instead I tell him that if he is ready to get rid of them because he doesn't want to play with them anymore then that is fine but otherwise keep them, they aren't doing any harm in the corner of the bathroom and he can keep them there as long as he wants. 

He ponders the basket for a while but confirms that he is done with all that now. 

The bath toys are goners too and he swiftly addresses the toy chest and drags out large robust toy trucks made from recycled milk bottles. He quickly states that these are quite babyish and he doesn't play with them anymore, yet lovingly looks at every single one as he pulls them out onto his bed, as I am delving into the depths of the now dusty toy box in search of a tractor trailer, I catch him pushing the big green recycling truck along his bed. He makes a soft ‘bruum, bruuum’ sound that I haven't heard for many months now and I feel a pang of nostalgia as I recall the many hours spent pushing these around the garden, the living room, the bath and even the park. The scuffs on the surface of the trucks betray the hours of rough play they have received in a game which he used to refer to as ‘bashy crashy trucks’. As these thoughts race through my head, filling it with vivid images and a sort of bittersweet feeling of fond nostalgia and loss, I finally realise that he is probably feeling this way too. He is in his own betwixmas. He is straddling a low wall that has suddenly been erected between his future childhood and this cosy, squishy, slightly sticky period of time that came before it. He is transitioning and where is his literature? He doesn't have a blog or a support website, he can’t text his mates and say; ‘wow guys im really struggling with this whole growing up thing, I am glad to get rid of my big trucks but I also really love them and it makes me a bit sad and want to eat chocolate.’ He won't get a flurry of replies confirming that it’s okay because they feel the same and he isn't about to type into google’ how to deal with the moment you are ready to get rid of your big green recycling truck but also kinda heartbroken about it?’ Sure there will come a time where he can do this and I am sure that there will be many things in the future that he will be asking his friends about and opportunities to google transitions of life but for now…for now all he has is me. 

So I sit on the bed and we look at the trucks together, ‘You used to absolutely love this one didn't you?’ I say and we remember the games we played with them, we talk about ‘bashy crashy’ and sending them down the slide, we talk about sandpits and bath times with the big ferry, we laugh about them and he pushes them around one last time and then he says; ‘I loved them but I don't need them anymore, I have other toys now and I just don't play with these anymore.’ He is totally ready for them to be gone and I am ready too. 

I will always try my hardest not to put my own emotions on these transitional periods, I will always need to respect that whilst I might not be, he is ready to move on. I wouldn't want him to hoard all these things that are no longer serving him and I wouldn't want to cling onto them myself either but I am glad that I have recognised now that each time this happens, he is experiencing his own internal transition and potentially feeling all those tumultuous feelings that I go through every time a piece of childhood is left behind. Now that I have recognised it I will endeavour to always offer him a place to mull it over, to reminisce and fondly cherish the item one last time before we respectfully allow it to leave our lives. We can discuss that sometimes transitional periods are confusing, we can feel happy and sad all at once. I am glad that I have taken on board his potential need to address these transitional periods. Most importantly we will continue to look forwards with excitement to the next page of our lives and welcome in the new ‘bashy crashy’ with open arms.