Toddlers are Weird

Here are just a few recent and weird things my 2.5 year-old has done and/or said.

Where: Target food area (I know, I'm an awesome mother and provider.)
Who: Norah and Me
What: We were sitting down, Norah eating chicken nuggets, me eating a giant pretzel. There were three flies buzzing around. 

Norah: Those are my buggy friends.
Me: Okay.
Norah: They love me so much.
Me: I'm sure they do.
Norah: Oh, buggy friends! Eat this nugget!

She tears a bit of nugget off and sets it on the corner of the table. 


Norah: Oh, buggy friends. Come here, buggy friends. Look, Mama! That buggy friend looks at me!


Another family comes in and sits at the table next to us; a mother, grandmother, and a girl around 4 years of age. The girl promptly starts running around the table, shooing the flies away.

Norah: NO! THOSE ARE MY BUGGY FRIENDS!

The family freezes and stares at Norah. The little girl continues shooing the flies.

Norah: NO! STOP! MY BUGGY FRIENDS! STOP!

Norah gets up and gets in Little Girl's face.

Norah: THOSE ARE MY BUGGY FRIENDS! LEAVE MY BUGGY FRIENDS 'LONE!

The mother and grandmother look at me blankly. Probably expecting some sort of parenting.

Me: Uh, the flies are her friends.
Norah: They love me so much.

Luckily, the mother and grandmother started laughing, and the little girl and Norah started to both talk to the buggy friends and all was well. 

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Where: In the car on the way to Grandma's.
Who: Norah and Me
What: I have no idea.

Norah: Our house is going to break.
Me: What?
Norah: Our house is going to fall down. It's going to break.
Me: Well, that's kind of chilling, Prophet-O-Doom. Why is our house going to break?
Norah: Because the other houses are mean.
Me: The other houses are mean to our house?
Norah: Yeah. And our house is nice.
Me: That's good. Being nice is a good thing.
Norah: Yeah. I want to go to the farm with Minta (her BFF).
Me: Okay, Honey. You tell Nana.

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Where: Target (Yeah, we go to Target a lot.)
Who: Norah and Me
What: Shopping for soap, wipes, a new pillow, and bananas.

Norah is dancing down a main aisle, heading toward the produce section.

Norah: Old MacDonald had a farm, and Bingo had a name-O! LOOK! A rocket ship!

She hugs a column/pole that has a service phone on it and probably supports the roof or something.

Norah: I'm in a rocket ship! 1-2-3 b'astoff!
Me: Let's get some bananas.
Norah: COME IN THE ROCKET SHIP.
Me: Okay, okay.

I grab the column.

Norah: NO! Get closer.

I get closer. Passersby are looking and smirking. 

Me: Okay, Honey. Off to the bananas.
Norah: 1-2-3 B'ASTOFF!
Me: I think it's 3-2-1 blastoff. Backwards.
Norah: 3-1-2 B'ASTOFF!
Me: Close enough.
Norah: Yay, rocket ship!

She promptly lets go of the column and stares hard.

Norah: You hold rocket ship. I'm pooping.

A couple alarmed looks from passersby. 

Me: Okay, Astronaut Baby. Then can we get the bananas?

Swearing Conclusion

I did actually reduce my swearing. Not completely. It's a hard habit to break. But I learned something valuable. There are words that are much worse than curse words that I don't want Norah to say.

We were at my Mom and Dad's, and I had just changed Norah's diaper and was attempting to put her pants back on. As Norah loves nakedness, this can be a struggle. She ran away from me, and I said, "Norah, please come back here." And she said...

"I hate you."

Without thinking, I practically shouted, "Norah! We never, never say that. Never!"

I rarely raise my voice; it's just not in my nature, I guess. So this outburst from me scared the shit out of Norah and she just burst into tears. I picked her up and shimmied her pants on without a word. She ran into the kitchen to Grandma. Grandma said, "Oh, honey, why are you crying?" Norah just sobbed. She couldn't even muster a "Mom was mean to me" or anything.

But while I feel a little guilty for scaring her, I am actually glad that it made a real impact. She can say "shit" or "Bambi sucks" or anything (not that this is a regular occurrence), but "I hate you" is unacceptable. Hating anything, or at least saying you "hate" something, isn't really great either, especially from a two-and-a-half-year-old kid. It's disturbing.

So I am going to keep watching my bad language, but I'm going to focus on truly "bad" words, like "hate."

It's Story Time

Running out of fairy tales. Here's a little change in the classic book Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch.

"Mom, I think we need to have that boundaries talk again."

You Know You Have a Toddler When...

Cries for Mom at 2:00 am are met with "Damn it," instead of "Oh my God, what's wrong?"

You tip servers based on their compassion and understanding.

You are a little suspicious of Steve's successor, Joe.

You have a standard fake smile and retort when people say, "My, she/he's got a lot of energy!"

You are becoming an awesome speller. Because even a quiet utterance like "park" or "ice cream" can create a snowball effect you are not prepared to deal with.

You have to bribe to get them in the tub, but set a timer to limit the amount of hand-washing.

You may have said, "Peanut butter does not belong in your ear."

You've considered a child leash.

You call trains "choo-choo trains" and cows "moo-cows," and you're talking with fellow adults.

You try to rouse your co-workers with a round of "What's gonna work? TEAMWORK!"

You've said, "No! Please stop!" or "I'm so sorry" over thirty times at a grocery store. In one visit.

You've promised anything-- from candy to toys to unicorns to rocket ships-- just so they'd go to bed. And they've refused.

You still try to cram them into 18-month sized clothes because everything else is dirty.

You wonder why a young rabbit is allowed to sleep in a room with an exposed fireplace and obvious rodent problems.

Your partner is wearing sparkly pink nail polish and pretending to be in a marching band and you don't even blink.

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What are your additions?

No Swearing: Day 1

I already failed. Norah got up at 5:00 am and the first words that muttered out of my mouth were "Damn it." But I'm going to keep at it.

I think that by limiting my use of curse words, I will bring back their special meaning. Right now they're just words.

Man, I have a lot of shit to do.


Damn, it's hot.


Where's that fucking towel?

But they used to be more powerful. Here are a couple of my favorite swearing moments from childhood:

Who: Me and my childhood friend, Crystal
When: I think I was around 7 or 8
Where: Summer Bible school
What: We had made kazoos using toilet paper rolls, wax paper, and a rubber band. We were leaving the church and Crystal had left hers on a table, and I got it and ran up to her.

"Don't you want your kazoo?" I asked.
"I don't want that piece of shit."
And the Bible school teacher was right behind her.

I still giggle when I think of that moment.


Who: Mom, Dad, sister, me
When: 9 years old?
Where: In the car. Road trip to Oregon from Minnesota.
What: We were going to take a pit stop and visit my great aunt and her little poodle.

Dad: Yeah, she really loves that stupid little dog.
Mom: What's it's name? It's Pingo, or Pongo, or Dipshit or something.

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And here are some of my favorite cinematic swearing moments:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Clark goes batshit when he finds out his holiday bonus is a jelly-of-the-month-club membership.

Pulp Fiction: Samuel L. Jackson's character asks for his wallet back.

The Big Lebowski: Walter and Donny.

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And my favorite Subversive Cross Stitch pattern:

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Ah, good times. Making curse words generic has weakened them for me. This sabbatical will do me some good, and remind me that swearing can be awesome in appropriate situations.

Fairy Tale Friday: The Ugly Duckling

I will make a better ending.

"Ha, ha. I'm a swan now, bitches."

"You know, we were wrong to tease you. And maybe the true moral of this story isn't about how one day you'll grow into your own, or become more attractive. Maybe the moral of this story needs to be about finding the beauty within yourself, and being kind to others."

"Eh, fuck you."

No More Swearing?

Well. It happened. My mother's worst fear. We were playing outside. It was an ordinary day. I had just gone inside and had forgotten what I was going to retrieve, which wasn't unusual. I stepped back outside.

"What the..." I trailed off.

And Norah, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, finished my sentence.

And she didn't say "heck." Or even "hell." You know what I'm saying.

Ryan looked at me and I could almost hear his brain repeating that TV commercial that says, "Dial 'lawyers.' L-A-W. Y...E...R...S."

It got me to thinking that I really need to stop swearing. While on some level it was hilarious, on another level, swearing toddlers aren't exactly socially acceptable, and as she goes to Catholic school, that could pose some problems.

So I am planning a swear-free week. Just like South Beach. I will break my addiction to swearing by eliminating swear words for a period of time. Then after the addiction is broken, I will slowly introduce swear words into my lexicon, but only in appropriate situations, such as if someone were to steal my parking spot.

I'll start on Monday. Until then-- fuckity fuck fuck!