Yee-haw!

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

Watching my soon-to-be three-year-old grandson reminds me of when his father was that age, and I dressed for the day in sweatpants and high-top Reeboks. My son was “all boy” as a lovely grandmother from Iowa called him, and his son is a duplicate, replica, clone. Those genes did not fall far from the family tree.

It was when I was chasing after my toddler son that I got the idea for a new, life-based spectacle -- I guess today it could be a reality television show -- the mother-and-toddler rodeo!

Here are some of the events:

• Replace the steer wrestling competition with mothers wrestling 18-month-olds to the ground for a diaper change

• Instead of bronco riding, competing mothers would lift squirming two-year-olds off rocking horses, run across to a parked car, and buckle them into car seats

• Calf roping would morph into chasing after three-year-olds across a playground, successfully avoiding moving swings, bouncing balls, and sandbags coming down the slide.

After the tests of physical strength and dexterity, we could have a round of the original “Let’s Make a Deal” -- the challenge that every parent faces multiple times a day with a toddler. (Do you want juice in the blue cup or the green cup? If you put on your socks and shoes, you can ride your tractor.)  Watch the contestants intuit which offer will be acceptable to a cranky toddler, or guess which “no” the child really means, or decide which works better -- bribery or mind control!

Life may be a cabaret, but when you’re raising a toddler it can feel more like a game show.