What I Woke Up To This Morning (or Adventures In the Parenting Of Toddlers)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have two beautiful children. I love them as much as a mother possibly can. The are flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. I would kill, maim, or die for them.

But this morning…oy.

My son is 17 months old. So, I don’t blame him all that much. His four-year-old sister, though, knows better.

Normally, when I mix flour, salt, and sugar, it is with the intent of making bread, I use small amounts. My daughter had a different idea, apparently, although I’m still not quite sure what it was. She decided to use two full, unopened bags of flour (white and wheat). And half a bag of sugar. And a full container of salt. And a full canister of oatmeal. And several packages of Kool-Aid. And a full box of spaghetti. And a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

But here’s the kicker–she did this on the living room floor.

On the carpet.

And she enlisted the aid of her brother. He helped by adding every single book on a small bookshelf that I have in the living room. Plus a couple my collectible Barbies.

When my husband and I woke up this morning and saw this apocalyptic mess, we had to make some snap decisions, the first one being whether or not to let them live. I mean, vasectomy is reversible, right? But we decided that starting all over again with new children would just result in something like this happening again. So, they live.

Next is appropriate punishment for the girl. Surprisingly, I didn’t even raise my voice to her. I think I was in shock. She got a veeeeeeeeeeeery long time-out, though. In her bedroom, with the door open, just sitting on the bed. No playing, no nothing. We tried having her help clean up, but she kept playing with the mess she’d made. We also explained to her that food is not a toy. And now, I didn’t have anything to make breakfast, lunch, or dinner with. My husband explained that he would have to go to the store and replace all the food she’d wasted, and that takes dollars (she knows what those are), and that we just don’t have very many dollars right now. I also explained to her that her brother still doesn’t quite know what good and bad is, but she does, and he thinks that she is really, really great, and tries to do everything that she does. So it’s very important for her to not do things like that, because her little brother still needs a lot more help (she digs him as much as he digs her, so I thought that telling her that might help).

I eventually let her out of her room, but she’s still on punishment. No videotapes today. She seems to understand, thank goodness.

I am not looking forward to bathing either of my little darlings this evening. They managed to get quite a bit of flour in their hair. Flour + water = paste.

At least she didn’t add any water to this mess.

2

awwwwwww. wanna trade? my teenager just got his driver’s license.

Anyhow. I remembered the day (Ben was 18 months old), he announced from the other room. “uh-oh”. what’s an uhoh Ben? “uh-oh, I coccaed the walls” fortunately for me, ‘coccaed’ to him meant colored, so it was merely crayons.

OTOH, I (when I was about 6) ‘fed’ Dad’s piranah. with baby brother’s powdered rice cereal. Amazing how much water that stuff sucks up.

My elder sister, when she was 6 and I was 4, carved her name into a door in the house E-L-I–Z-A-B-E-T-H, tried to blame it on me (who couldn’t reach that high). It was still there when the dad sold the house some 30 years later.

My brother, however, is the prize winner - he ‘shot’ Shirley Temple (with the BB gun, broke the TV), almost burned down the house (twice), and a variety of lesser evils.

The good news is that all three of us are fine upstanding citizens today.

Let me remind you again, tho’, the offer for Ben is still good…

3

Ah, toddlers…

I remember one day when Ralf Jr. was outside by my truck. he was about 3, and just learning to write letters. He was practicing by writing them on the door of the truck with a stone… They were there 2-3 years later when we sold the truck…

BTW - Wring - no trade…

4

:::laughing at Persephone::: :wink:
Ok, I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the situation…really… I am!
:::snickering:::
I just this minute finished a batch of play-dough for my Kindergarten class for this week…flour, salt and water. Take them outside, dust as much flour out as you can, and then when they’re in the tub, rinse, rinse, rinse!

My daughter was 18 months old when she got into a tube of Desiten when she was supposed to be napping. Smeared it all over her hair and face. Now that was hard to wash off!!!

5

Thats nothing, Perse’s daughter is 23!!!

6

Oh that’s okay. You can laugh at me. Just don’t forget to point while you’re doing it. :smiley:

7

When my sisters the twins were toddlers one set her bed on fire when they were supposed to be napping. And because they knew they were supposed to be napping, they didn’t say anything. The one crawled over into the other’s crib and they sat there and watched it burn. It wasn’t until my mother smelled the smoke she knew something was wrong. She dragged the mattress out the window.

My toddler nephew (2 1/2) this fall got the keys to the car, opened the child-proof thingy, went out, unlocked the car, got in, started it, put it in reverse and hit a stop sign, put it in forward and hit the neighbor’s house. All while my brother was brushing his teeth. Then tried to blame it on his daddy. :wink:

StG

8

My sister and her husband adopted their daughter when she was two and a half, and she came to live with them just a couple of weeks before Christmas. Now, my sister is a typical harried Mom–they have two other children–and Christmas is especially rushed between visiting relatives and friends from out of town, getting the shopping done, attending the boys concerts, etc. Anyway, Dec. 23, early in the morning, the parents finally got all the presents wrapped and put them under the tree (which was only half decorated). Later in the morning (around 5 am), new little daughter very quietly gets up, sees the presents, and, yep, opens them. Parents don’t want to get too angry–she’s only two and she’s not had a great life up to then, so they explain it’s not time to open presnts yet and leave it at that. They find time to get most of the gifts wrapped again that night, and, yep, daughter gets up early yet again. This time Daddy was listening, and so caught her before she opened too many, but they were very glad Christmas was the next day, Funny thing was, she just unwrapped the presents and pretty neatly at that, she made no effort to get anything out of a box or to play with anything, even stuff that was obviously toys. And believe me, this was a kid who could get into a box when she wanted to!

And when I was a kid, I tried to wander away from home so often that one time, when I was safely napping in my bed, covered by my blanky and stuffed animals, Mom assumed I’d gotten outside again and had the whole neighborhood, and the police, out looking for me before I was “found” by our neighbor, still asleep.

9

I make a perfectly reasonable offer and no one takes me up on it.

So, Persephone, how’d that bath go??? interesting hairdo’s today???

Remembered another story to ease your pain. I was about 1 1/2 years old. My mom thought I was napping.

But I wasn’t.

She thought I couldn’t climb out of my crib.

But I could.

She thought I couldn’t reach all the way up to her bed (I was pretty tiny)

But I could.

So… I reached up and got her purse, found her lipstick, smeared it allllll over my face, hands, feet, then walked out onto the brand new living room carpet(beige) to show mommy how pretty I was… :smiley:

10

My oldest, Anthony, was a champion at sneaking down the stairs. I once observed him. He would come down the stairs on his bum, but he’d only take one step every 5-10 minutes. One night, after we put him to bed, I went to check on him. He was gone. After a search of the house, we found him. In the storage room in the basement. He had managed to pry open a gallon of paint. It was all over the carpet. It was all over him. My husband turned red. I could see cartoon-like steam coming out of his ears. It was the only time I thought I actually had to protect Anthony from his dad.

Why did we have the paint? We’d just finished painting the house. Part of it twice. Anthony woke up early one morning, oh, about two weeks after we finished painting the house, and wrote all over the walls in dark purple crayon. After scrubbing the walls for four hours with a toothbrush, I realized that we had a thin white line wherever we had scrubbed. We had to re-paint.

Then there was the morning that Anthony and his little brother got up early and decided to pour sugar over their entire room. It’s a good thing we moved, because I believe that room is probably still sticky.

Poor Anthony. There was the time that my husband and I had been running errands all day, and although we had fed the boy, we hadn’t eaten anything ourselves. We stopped by the store, and picked up the ingrediants for a huge stir-fry. After what seemed like forever, everything was finally prepared and on the table. Anthony, from his high chair, said that he wanted more juice. As I started walking towards him, he threw his glass. At the table. Right beside the stir-fry that we had not touched yet. The glass shattered all over our meal. I think I cried.

I haven’t even mentioned much of Andrew, who is the kid that wrecked approximately 17 lipsticks, regularly dumped bottles of nail polish on the carpet, and flushed my new contact lenses down the toilet. And then there is the girls…

11

When iampunha was toddlerpun (near 3) and phantomdaughter1 was babyPD1 (near 1) . . .

Well, one day PD gets a call from PhantomMom. It lasts for . . . well, a while. PD1 and I get mighty bored, so we decide it would be bundles of fun to throw everything in our room outside. Everything we can get out the window - on the sidewalk down below. PD says the mattresses were left and that’s about it.

Wel, PD comes back to the scene, having ended the convo. She tells me she was very amused. Also annoyed. But she did not let us know she was amused. “I mean, people could have wandered by and taken any of that stuff. Daddy had to go down and get it.” Did I mention we lived in an apartment complex in one of the poorer areas of town?

We didn’t get any of it back for quite some time. And it was two whole weeks before we got all of it back.

Remind me to get PD to tell us about when she threatened me with a bath . . .

12

Now to recall the trials of my parents when I was a toddler. I think I’ve suppressed most of the memories, except for a select few.

One evening, Baby LNO was wandering around the house, and was somewhat thirsty. He saw mommy’s glass of water on the side table, and reached up, got both hands around it, and took a drink. The water tasted funny, so he put it back on the table and wandered around, looking for mommy. After calling out, he heard her reply from behind the closed bathroom door.

“Mommy? Can I have some of your water?”

“That’s not water, honey. No, I’ll get you some in a minute.”

“Oh. Um … okay.”

The smell of vodka on my breath came as a surprise to her. Ah, the water of life.

13

My unfortunate parents had to deal with three if us rolling/crawling/toddling/running around at once. And we’re all close in age. I’m the oldest of the three, my brother is 22 months younger than me, and our sister is 10 months younger than him. Let see…

  • My mother was in the kitchen one day when she heard from down the hall, “Don’t worry Jen, I won’t drop you.” She heard this and headed directly to the bedroom…where she saw my brother getting ready to lower my sister down from the top bunk…using the tiebelt from a bathrobe…around her neck.

  • My brother and I used to conduct jailbreaks. We had apparently figured out how to lower the sides of the crib for my sister to get out

  • My sister managed to drink the contents of a sample bottle of perfume.

  • I have a nice little scar right in the center of my forehead from where I had stitches after I hit the edge of the bathroom door

  • I managed to stick something (a key or other small metal object) into one of the electrical outlets

  • After eating a peach, my sister stuck her very sticky fingers between the doorframe and the open [big, heavy, metal-framed] door out to the terrace of my grandmother’s apartment. Took the fire department to pry that door away to get her [already turning blue] fingers out. (That was amusing just because a friend of the family was on duty that day. “My daughter’s hand is stuck in a door!” “Maryanne, is that you?” “Peter? Yes. I’m at my mom’s.” “We’re on our way.”

  • I managed to get my hand in the way of the car door after my father started to close it. Oooh that hurt.

All this and much more that I don’t remember.

We’re quite glad that the three of us are alive, well, are physically whole and possess our full mental faculties. So far we’ve made it to ages 24, 22, and 21.

14

[Walks in, points at Persephone, and laughs.]

Ha ha ha! You have kids and I don’t! Ha ha ha!

Oh… wait. Having kids isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is it…

Ok… Ha ha ha! You have to clean up her mess and I don’t! Ha ha ha!

::d&r::

15

Torberg reminded me of something I did (so I was told) when I was a toddler. My brother is 16 months younger than me, and when I was around 2 I heard him crying in his crib. I pulled him out, and promptly dropped him on the hardwood floor. He’s OK, now. My mom also tells a story about how when we were little she dressed us up for a professional photo. She put us both in the crib. When she came to get us, we had been indulging in a little creative finger-painting…with our poop!

I think I’ve blocked out all (bad) memories of my son’s antics when he was a toddler. He was an angel! He is now, however, a teen-ager. [ominous music]

16

Believe it or not, this is what I woke up to yesterday morning. The freaking day after the original huge mess. I thought she’d actually learned something. Apparently I was wrong.

The girl took the brand-new bag of sugar that my husband had bought (to replace the one she’d dumped on Sunday), and decided to dump that, too–in her brother’s bed. Once again, I let her live. But I think I got my point across that this is not good behavior a little better this time.

wring: I dusted her off as best as I could (per Kinsey’s suggestion), but I guess I missed some. She had some serious paste in her hair. I think I’ve gotten it all now, though. My daughter, being the occasionally typical kid, didn’t really care. I could have left it there forever, and she’d be just as happy. :smiley:

Oh, for the others who have mentioned lipstick–my daughter has a serious lipstick thing. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to understand that lipstick goes only on the lips. Not the eyebrows, not the walls, not the dog, not her brother. I finally had to literally lock my purse and makeup bag away, because she kept getting in to it. :eek:

17

Good GOD! Are the Barbies okay? I’m a doll collector myself and the HORROR of the idea! ACK!

18

It was the Fourth of July. My youngest brother was about four at the time. All the relatives were having a great time hooping it up as only relatives can. Eventually someone noticed that David had poked the garden hose into the family car’s gas tank and was headed for the faucet in an attempt to play “gas station.”

As David had not quite gotten the faucet turned on, the punishment was just a few swats on his…bumper.

The crowd returned to it’s raucous volume only more so, fueled by the recent events. Then came the hush heard around the world.

Not five minutes later, everyone turned at once to see the gas tank overflowing.

D A V I D ! ! !

I don’t seem to recall doing anything…

Myself

19

Guin: Thanks for asking! One of the boxes did get torn, though. Oh well. I collect because I like them. I have no intentions of ever selling them. And the one that was torn was a gift, so that one’s certainly never leaving the house. :smiley:

20

Once, when my son was about 5, I found him at the computer, getting very upset. He couldn’t close the CD player all the way, and so couldn’t play his game. I took a look at it and saw that a 6-inch plastic ruler had been inserted into it, jamming up the works.

My wife took him in the next room while I extricated the ruler. She asked him repeatedly who put the ruler in the CD player, since we were trying to teach him to be honest, even when he had done something wrong.

He knew he couldn’t accuse either of his parents for it, since that would land him in even bigger trouble, and his sister (the lovely and talented Sakura) was a teenager by this time, and wouldn’t do something as obviously gerbil-headed as sticking a ruler in the CD player. So when my wife asked him again who put the ruler in the CD player, he looked her right in the eye and said with a straight face, “The cat did it.”

Gotta hand it to that boy. He thinks well on his feet.