I am LOSING MY FUCKING MARBLES with my charming angelic-looking delightful toddler

[QueenOfFarkingEverything]

He is just 2. He has golden curls, just like a Botticelli angel. There the resemblance ends.

He is driving me demented. He climbs. On everything. He fiddles. With everything.

I walk him daily in the woods/park like a fucking over excitable labrador. I take him to soft play weekly. He has constant access to outdoor space with a trampoline and a swing and trike and whatnot. He has a range of nice entertaining toys that get rotated weekly so they don't get boring. A kitchen cupboard has been made safe for him to empty and fiddle with the contents thereof. He has a WNAKY FUCKING BASKET

But no. Ligatures, choking hazards, poisons - those are his favouritest and bestest things. Oh, and the poor cat. Fuck the wanky basket and the trike and the duplo, lets climb on the kitchen table and wave a knife around.

We have a VERY small home. I can't make it any more toddler-proof than it already is, without banishing him to one room that has had everything removed from it and the walls padded. Everything is on shelves, which he just climbs up [scream]. We have stairgates and playpens and fireguards, which he can now climb over so are fucking pointless anyway.

He is very very verbal, so I can and do explain why he mustn't climb on everything and fiddle with everything. All the fucking time. I sound like one of those Loud Parents that the whole of Mumsnet abhors.

I think I might go a bit mad, or possibly have already done so.

Er... is this normal for toddlers? I feel like I should know, having had one before, but it was years and years ago and I am positive she was not like this, or I would never have had another!

I am currently hiding at work while DS2 wears out the childminder. No death glares here!

OP... are you me?!

We don't watch television in this house. He helps with housework.

So ...

While I hoover, he has the attachments and either terrorises the cat, sweeps things off the shelves or posts them through the letterbox onto the street.

While washing up he stands on a chair with me and deep cleans the bit of the kitchen in a 6ft radius of the sink.

While cooking he does the same thing and takes great delight in lobbing the food into the pan in a big heap regardless of whether it's supposed to be in there or not.

He likes to unload the washing machine, even when he's supposed to be loading it.

While hanging out washing he marches up and down with the 6ft line prop used as an impromptu pugel stick.

He's very good at filing. He puts everything in the bin.

Oh and shopping. We get a trolley with a child's seat and a baby seat side by side. He sits in the child's seat and I load things onto the baby seat. He throws things from the baby seat into the body of the trolley and cackles. You do have to make sure you don't leave him near a shelf or person as he'll try and do the same with the tins of soup and/or somebody's hair accessories/jewellery.

We're trying another mummy meet up this afternoon, heaven help me.

DS is currently 'wiping' the table after having his lunch. Couscous is a bit like buckshot in his hands.

And in the time it's taken me to type that he's been very busy. He has just handed me his welly. It contains the rest of his beaker of milk, 2 hulk toys belonging to his sister (they were on a shelf 3 minutes ago), my keys (from my bag, same shelf) and 2 eggcups. Apparently "soup?"

Ds2 was banned from sitting with his big brother in assembly this morning by the miserable head. It's the only way he'll sit still there. now what am I supposed to do? I give him a little tub of raisins, he rubbed them in the floor whilst trying to escape from me and shouting for his brother. Ds1 likes me to come to assembly. What a dilemma! You could understand it If ds2 were being a horror but he's not! When he sits with his brother he sits still!

As in the time it's taken me to type he's thrown his lunch to the dogs and most of a punnet of cherry tomatoes.

I hoped playgroup would have worn him out. Apparently not then.

Shrinkingnora, that made me lol. My ds2 is already bored of dustpan/brush/hoover etc unfortunately and housework is my euphemism for go online/fall asleep on sofa.

What is likely to keep his attention for more than 5 minutes (I have already tried - giving him my jewellery to break sort through, playing with water in sink, 'helping' me clean/sort laundry etc).

I am so tired, just need to sleeeeeeeep.

I have one of these, he is 18 months.

He is currently standing on a small tower of steps/boxes, unloading all the toys from the whole toy unit and spreading them around the downstairs of the house.

This morning's destruction has been relatively limited, although my living room walls now have a fetching blue squiggle below 1 meter

He has not napped despite my best efforts, so will now sleep when we go to pick DS1 up from school, therefore ensuring that instead of a peaceful evening with a bottle of wine, DH and I will have to fend him off our dinner while we try and eat before 10pm so that we can get some sleep!

He is utterly gorgeous though, and now dancing around playing with his remote-control Thomas the Tank Engine. Which will keep him quiet for about 5 minutes

Mmm I am at Work. In an Office. With a Lunchbreak. Bliss.

Just wanted to say to Alitoomanykids I read about that technique in The Times magazine a couple of weeks ago, shortening sentence lengths and speaking simply and repetitively and passionately to catch your toddler's attention when they are tantrumming. I have actually tried it once and it worked! Couldn't believe it. I got his attention, showed him I appreciated how strongly he felt and explained why we couldn't do whatever it was.

However I can't bring myself to do it again as it's just too embarrassing in front of anyone else.

So pleased i've found this thread. OP you could be me, although i have to say that i love this kind of spirit and i'm so endeared by his enthusiasm. I have never seen an individual with such a zest for life. But yes, it can be extremely tiring and demanding. And then there's the looks from other parents who have children who sit perfectly like little statues at the dinner table. The fiddling drives me insane - he dismantled my mum's CD rack, including all the CDs, last weekend, before moving on to opening and closing the door repeatedly and then making a bee line for the electric fire and saying "Ouch, hot!" before repeatedly attempting to touch said fire. I know i'm painting a really bad picture of an unruly child who has no concept of rules. Providing he gets properly exercised daily he's bliss, but the trick is to keep him constantly on the go, in a place where he can do no harm either to himself or someone/ something else. I'm dreading the winter....

Oh, and he got his first haircut last weekend. While we were waiting our turn he ran around the booking in area in circles, rocked on all the chairs, scribbled felt tip pen all over his face and generally made an immense nuisance of himself for me - though the other people were very nice and understanding and even thought he was cute. On the plus side, once he got into the chair, he sat beautifully still for the duration and didn't put a foot out of line. Even said "Ta" when he was told it was finished. I swear he has a split personality.

Only one ! I have had two toddlers like this out of four children.

DD1 was my normal average child. Bless her :)

DS was my ever climbing toddler. Not only would he climb on the table, he would pull up two chairs and stack them ON the table one on top of the other and climb these as well !

My neighbour actually knocked on my door and told me that she was watching DS in his front upstairs bedroom window, balancing on the top of the children's bunk bed, trying to jump to the fan light in the centre of the room. I had already removed everything he could climb from his room barring the bloody bunk bed rips my hair out I went upstairs to rescue DS to find him balancing on one foot on the top of the rocking horse's head !

But he has grown up into an lovely 4.5 yo who whilst still loves climbing is more rational about his conquests and we have come out of the other end in one piece. Which is good as his baby sister has taken over his mantle.

DD2 is currently 2 yo and may not make it to 3 yo. She is also a super climber and any attempts I make to house proof, gives her a bigger challenge. She also spends a large part of her day being a puppy and insists on playing fetch whilst carrying things in her mouth...cute...but not sure the brand new HV knew what to make of her when she came to do her 2yo check. HV didn't believe me that she jumps, climbs, runs up and down stairs and has done since being under 16 months old !

One memorable moment was finding DD2 on the top bunk, "It is alright mummy" said her big sister DD1, "DD2 didn't climb up the ladder..she climbed up there" pointing at the foot of the beds. She climbed up and over like a mini rock climber, rolling into the top bunk.

I hope baby DD3 takes after calm DD1 rather than the fiesty DD2 and DS, I don't think my heart could take a third climber in the family...watch this space.

Recognise so much from this thread.

Ds thinks that he and I are some kind of gymnastics duo. After his bath (balance beam on the side: check) he cries if I don't let him practice his climbing. Over me. He holds both my hands and walks up me, stands on my shoulders, I quickly grab his ankles and he thows himself down my back until I lower his hands to the floor and he forward rolls down. All while slippery and wet. I did not encourage this, he just did it one day.

He also loves doing aeroplanes, you know where they balance on their tummy on your feet. Except he rolls over on to his back or flips around to be sitting on my feet and lets go, throwing himself to the ground.

Dd was a whirlwind of destruction as a toddler. Now she is nearly 4 she is slightly less lethal though still puts belts round her neck and does them up tight (but I'm a baby dog and this is my lead!) . You know that affectionate bemused look Charlie has when he looks at Lola? That is what we all look like most of the time.

Great thread!
Reading it reminded me of the time when I got to the bliss that was work and found porridge in my handbag.
I've put an inspirational picture of FireBoy on my profile. It does pass.

Have read thread with much nostalgia and sympathy. My ds, now 8, no longer climbs, except on a climbing wall with a harness.

But the mention of wnaky baskets took me right back to ds' toddlerdom and my early MN days [misty eyed].

I joined MN when my first was 2 and loved her wnaky basket - she's nearly 10 now but for reasons I can't fathom here I am doing the toddler thing all over again...

I am scared. I am convinced I have one of these in the making visions of him in a few years running in with hair on fire. He has just turned one. He wants to touch everything he is not supposed to: the little cover for the fire switch, the radiator pipe, the energy monitor, the drying rack and his particular favourite - he will insist on putting his little fingers in the jet spray holes in the bath. Its the way he turns around and looks at you when you say "No", as if to say, If I make her smile I can do it again! He is tipping toys out of the playpen and to my particular annoyance lately is picking up food and dropping it on the floor. Its like he will only have one piece of food on his tray at any one time. I wonder if its a bit OCD as when he had one of those bibs on that catches the food, any crumbs and the odd peas etc that he accidentally dropped whilst eating he picked out of there and dropped on the floor. I am so going to play "fetch" when he is older.

issimma - a kitten, an electric drill, a conker tree with two squirrels in it, and (if there's any spare room left) one of those amplified panpipe busking bands you get in town centres.

Those are all everyday things that won His Lordship's seal of approval today.

You'll all low this, took both boys to town today and we stopped for a brew on the way back.

I bought them a cookie to share, ds1 ate his half and was eyeing up ds2's remaking quarter. Ds2 sneakily slid the cookie into his high chair when ds1 wasn't looking and then shouted his brother and sat there saying "ds1, all gone." How's that for cunning and little sod behaviour! DH and I were godsmacked!

Love not low.