I’m a second year and a mum. Exam season is turning me into my toddler

Exam season is tough for most everyone. It means hours in the library and living in a constant state of stress, guilt and procrastination. But things are a little different for me. I’m a second year History student at Leeds, and also a mother to a truly amazing child.

Over the past few weeks I’ve observed some very stark similarities between my own behaviours and thought processes and that of my nearly three-year-old son.

We all know that babies are essentially small drunk adults but what I’ve observed is that toddlers are essentially students in exam season. All emotions and feelings intensified, frequent tantrums, and when given the opportunity to let their hair down they go well and truly wild.

I feel really emotional all the time

I don’t whether it’s the stress or the exhaustion but adverts make my cry uncontrollably, I even had a tear in my eye watching The Clangers on CBeebies.  My son is a very emotional child, as are most three-year-olds, at the flick of a switch he can go from being perfectly content too hideously upset over something as simple as being offered a drink. I feel the same.

I don’t want to leave the house

Nobody likes leaving their bed in the morning. Impending deadlines to meet, notes to write and people to avoid. No one knows this more than my three-year-old. Despite rising at the crack of dawn, he will do just about anything to avoid getting dressed, eating his breakfast and putting his shoes on.

The socks are “too blue”, he wanted the porridge in the pink bowl not the orange one and his shoes are simply unsatisfactory. It takes some serious will power for me too insist that nursery is not a prison, but a pleasant way to spend a day when I don’t want to get up and face the journey to University either.

I want to eat the same things everyday 

In the days leading up to my exams I really, really don’t feel like cooking. I want quick convenience food that requires minimum preparation. This philosophy I share with my toddler. If given the choice he would consume porridge, cheesy pasta and blueberries for all three meals. The difficulty arises when I suggest any variance in either of our diets.

I can only be productive in very short bursts 

I find that despite having spent all that time revising, the amount of time I’ve been productive or actually concentrated comes in about 15 minute bursts of inspiration. My toddler has a concentration span of about 20 minutes max on a good day, until whatever activity he’s focused on becomes boring and is discarded into the heap of other noisy plastic items in the middle of the living room floor.

I get so tired I cant sleep 

The reality is that you close your eyes and immediately know that you wont actually get much sleep because your too damn tired. This sentiment is something that my son also feels. He’s comes home from nursery, utterly exhausted from all the painting, singing, story reading, mud pie making that he can barely keep his eyes open while consuming yet another bowl of cheesy pasta.

But as soon as his head hits the pillow his eyes open and the flow of requests/demands start to flow. “I is thirsty”. “I need a poo” until I give in and set up my revision station in his room until he falls asleep.

I could win prizes in procrastination 

So far I’ve watched three seasons of House on Netflix, cleaned the house and straightened my hair in order to avoid having to do any work.

My son can put off bath time like a true procrastination professional. If it was a degree qualification he would graduate with a first. No doubt about it. We have to find his toys, then clean his teeth, then get his PJs ready.

It’s unsurprising that we’re both very emotional. But in reality my empathic response towards my child has become way more acute. I understand how he’s feeling as I feel that way too,  he simply expresses it in a louder more extrovert way, but that freedom of expression is healthy. The next time he feels like having a tantrum in the middle of Sainsbury’s, I might just join him.