In lieu of the traditional baby book (which, let's face it, is unlikely to materialize at this point) I've decided to put together something a little simpler.
Please enjoy this A-to-Z list of things that infuriated your toddler self so badly it made the Chernobyl disaster look like a picnic. Not a regular picnic, but a Downtown Abbey picnic with a nice table and chairs and real china that the servants laid out ahead of time.
Hopefully someday, at least one of us will look back on this list and laugh.
Love, Mom
A is for Absolutely Crazy. I love you, but you're legitimately insane. Yesterday I gave you the raisins you asked for, so you flung your bowl across the room like a frisbee and refused to eat them. Then when I threw them away, you went ballistic and tried to eat them out of the trash.
B is for Brown Spots and Banana. I may as well serve a platter of steaming radioactive waste for snack if the only other choice is the banana with the bruise on one side. I know that now. B is also for "Broken Food," which means anything I cut in half that you didn't specifically request me to, or maybe you did but then you changed your mind and what is even the point in living anymore?
C is for the Candle I Wouldn't Let You Eat. Finish the perfectly good banana on your plate and then we'll talk.
D is for Demanding a Diaper to Poop In. A few days post-potty training, you decided being a big boy was stupid and it was way more fun in the olden days when you could defecate anytime and anywhere. Several days of tense negotiations followed.
E is for Every Puzzle Piece Not Fitting Perfectly With Every Other Piece in Any Random Orientation You Choose. Clearly, we have some learning to do about what exactly is a puzzle.
F is for the Fire Truck I Regrettably Pointed Out in the Car. I will never again say "Look! A fire truck!" unless I'm fully prepared to listen to you shrieking that you missed it for the next 20 miles while desperately scanning the road for either another fire truck or a billboard advertising affordably-priced exorcisms.
G is for Gravity. You are almost as good at building ridiculously precarious block towers as you are at hurling them across the room like a sociopath when they fall down.
Hug is for the Hug I Gave Your Dad. With the speed of a chaperone in a Jane Austen novel, you dove in and quickly made it clear that there would be no shenanigans going on here, not while you were in charge. Which is ironic, considering that's how you got here in the first place.
I is for I Went to the Bathroom. Or anywhere you weren't invited.
J is for me asking you to stop Jumping on My Pancreas. Just because a person does a few crunches on the floor doesn't mean they're your own personal bouncy castle, you know.
K is for Karma. I'm sorry I laughed when you gave the door a roundhouse kick in a fit of fury and it swung back and knocked you over on your rear end. In my defense, it was kind of hilarious.
L is for Looking at the Picture You Were Coloring. I get that some artists are really sensitive about showing their work to anyone before it's completed; I also get that you are obviously one of them.
M is for the Magic Wand I Wouldn't Let You Keep Hitting Me With when I was unloading the dryer. You cried way harder than seemed necessary when I took it away, seeing as I'm the one with the star-shaped welts on my buttcheek.
N is for Naptime. Tantrums at the beginning of naptime. At the end of naptime. At the mere mention of naptime or the existence of naps in general.
O is for Other Laws of Physics. I've rarely seen you so mad as when you're trying to stick two of your trains together but the magnets keep repelling each other. (Until I offer to help. Then you're madder.)
P is for Pants, which you react to as if they're lined with fire ants.
Q is for the Quarter I took out of your mouth. The brown banana would be a better choice for an afternoon snack than this nickel-plated Norovirus buffet you found in the mall parking lot, but I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.
R is for this Random Piece of Plastic. You're utterly hysterical right now, and it's either because I took it away or because Viking warriors just razed your entire village to the ground. Hard to say which.
S is for Shadow. It silently follows you around no matter what you do, and you know what? That actually is a little creepy. I'm with you on this one.
T is for the Toilet Bowl Brush I have to pry out of your chubby hands every time I leave the bathroom door unlocked. WHY IS THIS YOUR FAVORITE TOY??
U is for preventing you from Unwrapping Every Single Tampon in the box. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to want anything as badly as you wanted to waste $6.99 worth of Tampax for no good reason.
V is for the time I tried to sneak Vegetables into your macaroni and cheese. I crossed a line by not respecting your reverse-Atkins diet, and I'm sorry.
W is for getting the Wrong-Colored Cup. How do you decide which colors you love and hate each day? Maybe it's random. Maybe you're consulting secret astrological charts tucked under your crib mattress. All I know is, every time I open the cupboard I feel like I'm playing a toddler version of Russian roulette.
X is for your X-istential Crisis over a bowl of yogurt this morning. I still have no idea what was going on.
Y is for Yelling when I caught you digging in the garbage can. Again, is it just me who's having a hard time seeing what can possibly be so disgusting about a brown spot on a banana if you're literally upset that I won't let you eat compost?
Z is for Zero Mini Muffins left. There was denial. There was anger. There was bargaining and depression. Then anger again. And finally acceptance. Which was followed by more anger. Basically, you were just really mad that someone (you) had eaten the last muffin. I guess life is hard when you're two.
4 comments:
I never knew "I do it you help me" was one sentence before I had a toddler. Along with the feeling of "hold me but don't touch me."
Everything is toddler roulette around here--especially shirts which is way a certain 2 year old is wearing the same spiderman pj top for a day, a night, and a day.
Very funny, creative, and true. Loved it!
😂
Jenny, you need to publish this as a picture book!
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