by Mike Spohr
In the end, your best defense against these ravages is to simply throw up your hands and accept that stuff is going to get broken, destroyed, or ruined, and to soothe yourself with fantasies of the future when you’ll no longer have to yell, “This is why we can’t have nice things!”
STAYING SAFE
Your toddler isn’t only going to come after your stuff; she’s going to come after you too. To avoid ending up on a first name basis with the crew down at the emergency ward, you will need to be prepared for all kinds of toddler attacks.
First and foremost, you must be on the lookout for what toddlerologists refer to as “The Flail.” Here’s how it works: your toddler will move within close proximity of you in a relaxed manner. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, she will violently fling an arm or leg in your direction, nailing you in the nose, neck, or most regrettably, in the crotch. To protect yourself against this savagery, it’s a good idea to rest a hand on your toddler’s arms and legs during cuddle sessions.
The mayhem doesn’t end there. Your toddler will run, jump, and dive into you, generally when you’re not paying attention. She will pull your hair and ears, pinch your nipples (regardless of whether you’re male or female), and scratch your face with her razor-sharp toddler talons. If you wear glasses, she will pull and push on them, injuring the bridge of your nose… and your glasses. (Side-note: if you’re bespectacled, you should budget now for a new pair of glasses or two.) And, if you try to nap in her presence, she will wake you by hurling herself on top of you. Because of this, it’s always best to nap in the fetal position, ideally while covering your face and head with your hands.
Lastly, you need to always be on the lookout for any signs of impending tantrums. Once in full tantrum mode, your toddler will kick and flail with a rage-fueled power that is at least two to three times stronger than that of the non-tantrum variety. Most dangerously, your tantruming toddler will perform the backwards head-butt, dramatically arching her back and flinging her head backwards toward your face. The back of your toddler’s skull, when it meets your face at great speed, can easily split a lip or break your nose.
As you have likely figured out by now, fully relaxing in the presence of your toddler is not advisable. This is less than ideal, of course, but if fully relaxing is a priority of yours, parenthood was a very, very poor choice.
AN INTERVIEW WITH PREEMINENT TODDLEROLOGIST
DR. TERRY BULTEW
Question: How did you become interested in toddlerology?
Answer: Upon graduating from university, I originally intended to study the lost Pygmy tribes of Uganda, but on a fourteen-hour flight to Kampala I sat behind a terror of a toddler unlike any I had ever seen before. By the time we landed, this incredible specimen had made everyone on the flight irate—even people sitting forty rows ahead who were wearing headphones—and I knew then and there I’d found my true calling.
Q: What does your typical workday look like?
A: Typically, I spend most of my days conducting research in the field. Recently I embedded with a group of toddlers at a McDonald’s PlayPlace and was accepted as one of their own. The moment their leader offered me a hardened fry she found on the floor (thus signifying that I had been accepted) was the greatest moment of my career.
Q: Why do you think toddlers have become the way they are?
A: We have seen this kind of rapid evolution in less advanced species, but never in more advanced ones—and certainly not in humans. Toddlers’ rapidly increasing acuity for misbehavior is truly alarming, and its cause is still a mystery. My theory (unproven, of course) is that there is something in the fruit snacks.
Q: What do you think the future holds for our toddlers and us?
A: It’s possible that within the next ten years, toddlers will develop a super intelligence that allows them to enslave every human on earth over the age of four. But if that doesn’t happen I think “My Toddler and Me” music classes will continue to grow in popularity.
PHONES
There’s nothing you own that your toddler will want to hold and touch more than your phone. It plays music! It has games! It takes selfies! Yes, a smartphone will be your best friend and your worst enemy. It will keep your kid busy and quiet when you’re at a restaurant or talking to adults, but when you give it to your toddler once, she will want it again, and again, and again.
Some people will tell you that letting your toddler play with your phone is bad for her. That is debatable. What isn’t debatable is that giving your phone to your toddler is bad for someone else: you. Here are just a few of the ways your toddler can wreak havoc on your life with that little device:
• She will erase apps, videos, images, and emails.
• Her grubby fingers will ruin the camera.
• She will call people—and it will always be someone you absolutely do not want her calling, like your boss.
• She will respond to messages and send voice texts.
• She will post a woefully low score on a game to your Facebook timeline—and everyone you know will see it.
• She will lock you out of your phone.
• She will drop the phone and shatter the screen.
• She will drop your phone into the toilet, sending it to a watery grave.
If someone gives you guff for letting your toddler use your phone, remind them that we live in an information age, and the sooner he understands how to survive in it, the better.
Obviously, never giving your toddler your phone is the best line of defense, but that’s also the most unrealistic option. Instead, take precautions to protect your phone.
Invest in a sturdy, waterproof case that will guard against water damage and accidental drops. You can also set a password to unlock your phone (but be warned, if a toddler tries too many times to unlock it, you can get locked out for hours). There are even programs that lock your kid into whatever app you want her to play on, preventing her from exploring (and destroying) your phone.
Above all, teach your toddler that while a smartphone may be fun, it’s not a toy. Sure, there are a lot of games on it, but it’s an expensive, important piece of technology that you rely on for all sorts of different tasks. This might be a tough lesson for a toddler to learn, but eventually she will get it, especially if you take the phone from her the second she does something on it she shouldn’t.
PROTECTING YOUR TODDLER FROM YOUR TODDLER
As bad as the toddler-created mayhem discussed thus far may sound, the sad truth is that you won’t spend much time worrying about any of it—not the butts scrawled on walls, not the broken heirlooms, and not even the enthusiastic kicks to your groin. What you will worry about is the very real prospect that your toddler’s wild ways will cause her to accidentally injure herself. And since you can’t put your toddler in a straightjacket for the entirety of her toddlerhood (because it will stunt her development and likely get you arrested), you will need to make toddlerproofing your home a major priority.
Now you may be thinking, “Toddler-proof the house? Why? The place is already baby-proofed.” But what you need to understand is that letting a toddler loose in a home that is only baby-proofed is about as prudent as patching up a hole in a parachute with Scotch tape. What makes toddlers such a risk to themselves? They combine increased physical dexterity and an insatiable curiosity with absolutely no sense of self-preservation. This is a very, very bad combination.
To toddler-proof your home, you will first need to revisit your baby-proofing. It’s probably been a year or so since you did it, so it’s a good idea to see how things are holding up. If a drawer or cabinet lock is broken (or even loose), replace it. If an outlet cover is missing, get a new one. And if there are any drawers, cabinets, or outlets that escaped your first round of baby-proofing, think about baby-proofing them now. If this sounds like overkill, remind yourself you are no longer dealing with a goofy-grinned baby who can only stand if she’s holding onto something. Your kid has seriously upped her game, and so should you.
Next, get low on the ground and look at your home from your toddler’s perspective. Ask yourself, “If I were a psychotic toddler hell-bent on putting myself at as much risk as possible, what would I do?” Remove any items that make your Spidey senses tingle even a little, and be on the lookout for anything she could pull down on herself. Televisions should be mounted on the wall or secured with a TV anchor.
It is also crucial that you think vertically. Toddlers love to climb things, and will go about it with the temerity of a mountain climber. They will push chairs and stools against counters to climb onto them, and even scale the refrigerator by holding onto the handles. Doing little things, like pushing in chairs all the way or putting stools atop counters when they’re not in use will help. You will also want to always push drawers in all the way because if you don’t, your toddler will climb them like stairs and get to places she shouldn’t.
Part of your toddler’s newfound ability to explore the air up there means that things you previously thought were out of reach no longer will be. You will need to put any potentially dangerous items where she absolutely can’t get to them, preferably behind a cabinet lock. Fail to do this and leave, say, a bottle of cleaning spray on a seemingly unscalable counter, and you may stumble upon your kid (six feet off the ground) spraying it into her face. You then will have to frantically call poison control before holding your screaming toddler in the sink for twenty minutes in order to flush out her eyes. Or so the authors have been told—this certainly didn’t happen to their real-life toddler. (Ahem.) This scenario, as you imagine, is best avoided.
Most importantly, you must never lower your guard and think, “I’m sure she’s fine” or “There’s no way she could ever do that.” Instead, you must live under the assumption that your toddler is constantly conspiring to do something that could do some serious damage. More than likely, she will be.
CHAPTER 2
COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR TODDLER
When you first became a parent you undoubtedly peered into your newborn’s tiny face and fantasized about the conversations you would have one day. You imagined giving him advice, baring your souls to each other, and laughing so hard that you’d suddenly wonder, “Did I just become best friends with my kid?” While those conversations may happen eventually (emphasis on may), you can be sure that nothing even remotely like this will happen during the toddler years.
To survive communicating with your toddler you will need to be incredibly patient and draw upon all of your interpretive skills. Prior experience dealing with irrational people is also very helpful. Have you ever had to chaperone a drunk friend who wanted to go to another bar even though they’d already thrown up on themselves? Or waited on a customer who pitched a fit because their burger didn’t magically arrive within sixty seconds of ordering it? If so, you will be well suited for communicating with your toddler. Ready to join the conversation? Good. Let’s talk it out.
EARLY TODDLER
During this stage you will be anxious for your toddler to start talking, but he probably won’t be as motivated as you’d like. This is because (in far too many circumstances) he will have no need for language. When he wants some of your yogurt, he will take it (with his fingers), and when he wants your smartphone, he will swipe it. As his parent, it’s your job to stop him from acting like a feral creature and to force him to actually communicate his wants and needs. This he will do through a new toddler’s primary forms of communication: screaming, crying, and throwing full-blown tantrums.
When toddlers communicate this way it’s easy to get frustrated, but keeping your cool and trying to understand their kicking and screaming can make the difference between suffering through or avoiding a forty-five-minute tantrum that ends with you crying too. One way you can do this is by playing a game of “Hot and Cold.” Does your toddler’s wailing abate ever so slightly when you move toward the refrigerator? If so, he might be hungry. To test this further, move away from the fridge. If your toddler kicks his feet even harder, you can be sure that’s his way of saying, “Colder! COLDER!”
As you’ve likely surmised, much of what you will do to help your toddler learn to communicate will make you feel more than a little silly. For example, it’s widely recommended that you narrate the things you do in front of your toddler. This means you will often find yourself alone with your toddler and saying things like, “Now I’m putting the socks in the drawer! Yes, I am! Right next to the underwear! Can you say ‘underwear’?” The fact that your toddler will probably just stare back at you with a blank expression after you say this will do little to make you feel any less silly. Narrating your actions in public, however, is where you will feel the most silly, especially if you fail to make sure no one else is in the vicinity when you do it. The last thing you want is to say, “Now I’m putting a bag of rice in the cart! Rice is yummy, isn’t it?” only to have an until-then-unnoticed old woman respond, “Uh, sure, dear. Rice is yummy.”
Another popular way to encourage your toddler’s early communication skills is by teaching him how to sign simple commands like “more,” “snack,” “drink,” and “play.” Again, you may feel a little silly signing at your toddler (especially if he only stares back at you), but it can make your lives easier if he gets the hang of it. It’s recommended, though, that in addition to teaching him the aforementioned commands, you also teach him to recognize the signs for “Dude, have some chill!” and “I swear to all that is holy that if you don’t stop screaming I will burn every last stuffed animal on your bed.” These latter hand signs will come in especially handy when he is acting up at church, the library, or a restaurant.
Avoid talking to your toddler using “baby speak.” This will not only help to improve his verbal development, it will lower your chances of getting caught saying “wee wee” or “nappy poo” in front of another adult.
Eventually your toddler will say his first word, but when he does it’s important not to try to get him to repeat it in front of every person you see. The reality is that your toddler may not repeat the word again for weeks (or even months), and you will look foolish berating him to say “carrot” over and over until you finally give up and say something cringingly awkward like, “He really did say ‘carrot.’ I promise he did. Come on, baby. Say ‘carrot.’ Just once for Mama! SAY CARROT!’” Many scientists conjecture this phenomenon of toddlers gladly performing milestones in front of you (but never in front of anyone else) is intentional and their way of pranking their parents. So, if you ever see your toddler laughing with another toddler, it’s most likely at your expense.
PEAK TODDLER
It will be hard to believe, but at this stage your toddler (the very same one you harassed over and over to say “carrot” in front of your mother-in-law) will now speak almost constantly and in front of everyone. The rub, though, is that his speech will be all but incomprehensible to anyone but you. As a result, you will basically become his interpreter and spend your days explaining to everyone you meet that “huffo” means “hello,” “eeeeeeeese” means “cheese,” and “teepee” means “TV.” And since you alone can understand him, it will mean that on the rare occasion you have a kid-free night out, you will be forced to run out of the movie theater to field a call from the babysitter because your toddler is frantically shrieking “Air!” and he doesn’t know why. You, of course, will know that “air” means “bear,” as in the stuffed one your kid absolutely must have on one or two random days each month.
If your toddler is talking too much somewhere he shouldn’t (like the library), ask him what he likes about vegetables. This will render him mute within seconds.
Calls like that from the babysitter won’t be fun, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the awkward situations your toddler’s less-than-st
ellar pronunciation will get you into. More than anything else, you must be prepared to quickly jump in and clarify any words and phrases your toddler will say that sound inflammatory but actually aren’t. For example, words like “truck” or “fork” may be innocent, but they can sound especially profane coming out of your toddler’s mouth. Many a parent has seen their personal relationships damaged and suffered public humiliation because they didn’t realize their toddler’s pleas for a fork sounded like a flurry of F-bombs to everyone else.
The good news is that in certain circumstances your toddler’s incomprehensible speech can be used to your advantage. A good example of this is when your toddler inevitably makes a wildly inappropriate comment to someone in public:
Your toddler said: “Why is that man so fat?”
The man: “Excuse me?!”
You: “He said he… likes your hat.”
The man: “Oh! Thank you!”
Alternatively, if your toddler says something really inappropriate, you can feign ignorance and simply say, “That just sounded like a bunch of gibberish to me.”
Ironically, while your toddler will speak almost incomprehensibly 99 percent of the time, he can suddenly become incredibly eloquent when it suits him. So, while he might sound like a drunken Bob Dylan when you ask him where his shoes are, he will speak with the crisp clarity of Sir Anthony Hopkins when he wants a treat. (“Excuse me, Mother, but could you take me out for ice cream, perchance?”) You can call your toddler out on this if you choose, but be warned: parents who do so report seeing a dramatic increase in how often their toddler says things like “truck” and “fork” in front of elderly grandparents and religious leaders. This is highly unlikely to be a coincidence.