YO MAMA: The magical minds of toddlers

OPINION

My two-year-old son traces his finger over the open book in his lap. He’s looking at a big picture of a family eating dinner. Using his thumb and forefinger, he plucks an apple off the page and pretends to eat it. He smiles and smacks his lips as if he can really taste it. Then he gets another imaginary apple from the book and offers it to me.

His mind is just so magical right now and I can’t get enough of it.

It makes me so happy — and sometimes a little jealous — to bear witness to this enchanting phase of my child’s life. It’s like watching someone in a dreamscape. His is a world where imaginary toys can be pulled out of storybooks and played with. Where a fluffed up bedsheet is pure magic and a flashlight in a dark room is straight up sorcery. It’s a place where cats brush their teeth and stuffed lamas are expected at tea time. It is a World of Wonder.

At 22-months-old, my son has less life experience than some of the condiments in my fridge, and that means he doesn’t know how the world works yet. Anything is possible. There is still mystery. There is magic.

I miss that.

Knowing how the world works kind of sucks sometimes. I think the last time I was in the World of Wonder was when I was 11 years old and still harboured hope that I might get an invitation to Hogwarts in the mail.

The world around me has long since become demystified. The laws of physics explain why bed sheets puff up like clouds when shaken. Pictures are just that — pictures. They are not real. Flashlights are merely man made machines powered by batteries. Letters from Hogwarts never come. We live in a world where any phenomenon can be explained with a quick Google search. Where is the wonder? The intrigue and the magic? With so much information at my fingertips, I sometimes feel like my mind is blank.

But my toddler is teaching me to use my brain differently. More creatively. He’s teaching me to turn off Google and use my imagination more. Like Peter Pan, I’m slowly remembering how to play make-believe. I am learning just how much of a creative outlet playdough can be, and how addictive Lego blocks are. I feel more inventive and free to create. It’s incredible how liberating child’s play is for the adult mind.

It sometimes feels like a darkened lobe of my brain is lighting up again. Maybe I’ve been watching too many episodes of Stranger Things lately, but I actually caught myself trying to use telekinesis to clean up my kid’s toys the other day (it’s worth a shot, right?)

I know this phase of my son’s life won’t last forever. Before I know it he’ll be leaving the World of Wonder for the Real World. For now, I’m happy to be held spellbound for as long as the magic lasts.

— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.

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