“Don’t slap your face with the bread.”

“I’m not gonna lie…your belly button creeps me out.” – my brother. Just one of the special moments we shared over Thanksgiving.

Parent instructions.

No amount of parenting books can prepare you for the random battles you’ll face with a young child. Like the yellow train needing to go before the red train. No, not THAT yellow train, the OTHER yellow one that looks identical to the one you just held up. {insert hysteria}

You also have to say a lot of things out loud that you never imagined needing to specify. Like when we had to say, “Don’t slap your face with the bread.” out loud at dinner a few weeks ago.

Or any of these things in recent days. I just didn’t anticipate needing to use my vocal cords to say the following word combinations:

• Apples aren’t for cleaning.
• Where’d the other booger go? Is it in your mouth?
• Mack gets scared when you chase him with the chainsaw.
• What all did you touch when the poo-poo was on your fingers?
• We don’t need to wash the table with our feet.
• NEVER chew on batteries.
• Which of Hutton’s toys did you “clean” with the “soap”?
• If your head is itching, try scratching it with your fingers, not your chips.
• Uhhh….where’d you find that chicken nugget?
• You don’t need to push Hutton out. He’ll come out of mommy’s belly on his own.
• Don’t lick the window.
• Keep your clothes on.
• Please don’t throw your diaper at my face.

And that was just what I told Taylor. You can only imagine what I had to say to the 2 year old.

Toddler instructions.

On the flip side, toddlers also say hilarious things. Life is so much better when they start verbalizing what goes through their weirdo little brains.

Beckett (now a whopping 2.25 years old) has always had a happy disposition, but he’s also a conniving little booger who says funny things. A lot of adult phrases like “Oh my word.” and “Are you kidding me?” and “STOP TALKING.”

Other times, it’s all his own genius. Like when we tell him to go in the living room to pick up his toys and he stops at the doorway, grunts a little, then yells, “But I’m TOO BIG. I can’t fit in the libing woom! …mommy do it.”

Or when he asks for something ridiculous – usually a request like cookies for dinner – and we say no. He gets right up in your grill and says, “But you can try, mommy. Can you try?” (We might have Daniel Tiger and his stupid try-it-again song to blame for that one.)

Or when he gets in trouble, we have a chat about whatever outrageous behavior he exhibited, and he ends our chat by sighing really loud and saying, “Dere. I feel bettew.”

Or when he asks and answers his own questions to do what he wants. “I need to do putthleth on the iPad, ok mommy? Ok, Beckett. Hewe you go.”

Or when you ask how high he can count and he jumps as high as he can yelling, “(jump) 1 (jump) 2 (jump) 3….WOW. Dat’s weally high!!”

Taylor’s weakness is the cute factor. My weakness is humor. So when Beckett is being both a turd and a reallystinkincute comedian at the same time, neither of us can parent effectively.

If Hutton has a personality of any sort, we might have to call in reinforcements.

What are your favorite parent/toddler phrases? Your mouth, the mouths of your babes, your “friend’s” mouth…doesn’t matter where it came out of. It’s time to divulge so we can laugh together.

For completely unrelated keepsake purposes, a photo roundup from Thanksgiving and a video of the sickly booger eater himself.

We’re all a bunch of nutjobs, but isn’t that the best kind of family?

I’m thankful to call them mine.