Becoming a parent will teach you new phrases. (No, I don’t mean the colorful kind, full of four-letter words–although I have been known to throw those around too.) And yet, 100% of the stuff moms say is completely by necessity. I mean, before we had toddlers, WHO KNEW we’d ever have to form sentences like “We don’t eat toilet paper”? Seriously.
My sweet baby is almost a year and a half old, and this is the kind of stuff that falls out of my face on a regular basis now. . .
We don’t stand on the coffee table.
We don’t lick the floor.
We don’t eat the dog’s food.
We don’t eat toilet paper.
We don’t headbutt the glass.
We don’t lick the couch.
Don’t bite my hair!
Honey, if you’re going to the store, we need diapers and wine.
No, the water is cold. This ducky’s a lying liar.
Tell me you’re not eating pine cones.
What did you find? Don’t eat it, let me see. No, don’t eat it, what is it? Uh oh. HONEY? ARE BEETLES POISONOUS?
Hi sweetie! Mommy loves you. You smell like poop!
Honey, I need backup. There is poop everywhere.
It’s JUST PANTS. Why are you flipping out?
This one’s my favorite, because (unlike diaper changes, which have been a challenge since she learned to crawl) she never minded having pants put on before. And nothing about them has changed; she just suddenly hates them. It’s ridiculously arbitrary. Also, it reminds me of that dating service’s name: “It’s Just Lunch.” Which makes me feel relevant and hip when I quote its name to my kid for every routine thing under the sun that she’s suddenly pitching a fit about:
It’s JUST BREAKFAST.
It’s JUST THE CAR SEAT.
It’s JUST THE ERGO CARRIER.
It’s JUST THE DOG.
It’s JUST THE WHITE NOISE MACHINE.
It’s JUST THE HIGH CHAIR.
It’s JUST THE BABY GATE WHICH I HAVE CLOSED BEHIND MYSELF IN A VAIN EFFORT TO GO TO THE BATHROOM ALONE.*
*If you see a dating service named this, you should run very far in the opposite direction.