If It Walks Like A Toddler…

If you’ve met me in person or have read my blog for more than 3.8 seconds, you know that I am not what’s called “a baby person.”

I love kids. I do not love babies, really, or any creton under the age of about 4.

I prefer dealing with semi-rational, semi-independent human beings.

I welcomed every new milestone as one small step for them, one giant step toward that fabulous retirement spot my husband and I discovered by watching House Hunters International incessantly.

And now that they’re almost-10 and almost-8, I love this time of life with them. It freaking rocks. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have one of those Baby Things or Tantruming Toddlers in the house.

Until December, when I got all sappy and got my daughter a dog from the animal shelter.

She is full grown. And yet, it feels an awful lot like I have a clingy toddler in the house. All the things I hated about That Stage of Parenting have come back to me. You see, Daisy the Dog has separation anxiety. And a dog with separation anxiety shares the following behavioral traits with a toddler.

Urinating or Defecating

Toddlers pee indiscriminately. There is no awareness that their bad timing can wreak seven degrees of personal humiliation on parents.In fact, the more inconvenient, the better. Pulling one’s pants down at a swanky social event or PTA meeting is highly encouraged.

Daisy the dog pees every time a new woman she’s never met before shows up at our house.

Barking or Howling

Toddlers use various animal calls to communicate pleasure, frustration, anger, gas or horror at Yo Gabba Gabba being turned off. They can channel pterodactyls, hyenas, dying cows, coyotes or apes.

Daisy the dog barks incessantly whenever we leave the house, especially if we put her in the crate. There is no chewy toy, Kong, or extra strength Benadryl that will calm this shizz down.

Chewing, Digging and Overall Destruction

Toddlers are one-woman or one-man destructive forces, tearing apart playrooms in 2.3 seconds flat. Ruining a perfectly Pinteresty bedroom with a single Sharpie marker. Figuring out how to use round-tipped scissors to cut a hole in one’s carpet. Using glue in ways only considered by fetish sites.

Daisy the dog chews on all sorts of crap, but seems to prefer Legos, my husband’s underwear and my Toms shoes. Also library books, Squinkies, pipe cleaners, and sock puppets.

Escaping

Toddlers like to escape or run away when they aren’t allowed to have their 257th lollipop of the day, or when Mommy has the nerve to ask them to take a nap. Of course, they usually spend so much time packing their getaway bag full of essential items like a barrette, their Littlest Pet Shop figures and their-numbering-in-the-thousands stuffed animal collection that they don’t ever manage to get very far.

Daisy the Dog can disappear from our house faster than Brandi Glanville can call LeAnn Rimes a fat homewrecker.

Jumping Up

Toddlers are mini-Klingons, strapped to your leg at all times, the annoyance of it all being punctuated by a constant reaching up and grabbing at your shirt, shoulder, elbow, hoop earring, and stringy-ass-needs-a-root-job hair and saying, “mommymommymommymommymommy.”

Daisy the dog is a circus freak. She jumps up and can walk solely on her back legs for as long as it takes Little CEO to brush her hair. Which is like, 45 minutes. While walking on said spindly legs, she skips grabbing at my appendages and instead, opts for grabbing at and sniffing my crotch. I sometimes mistake her for my husband.

Close Talker

Toddlers don’t get “this is my dance space, this is your dance space.” We really need to start showing Dirty Dancing to children at a much earlier age, so they understand this important socio-personal concept. They are all European-y and close talker-y and get up in your face and don’t care that their breath smells like a gerbil and that their drool is landing on your really cute bracelet and that you really don’t need to see the microscopic organisms that are floating around in that giant green booger that’s dangling out of their nose like a tiny, goopy chandelier.

Don’t ever make eye contact with Daisy the dog. Don’t accidentally gesture in her direction or get up while she is watching you. Don’t pet her for one second. She will be in your face, breathing her Eau de Backyard and Butt breath at you. she will stretch her body closer to you until her nose drains into your ear. If you happen to be lying down, it is an invitation for her to crawl on top of your face and lay there like a wet noodle.

So that’s it. I took forever to finally get out of the toddler stage, and now I find myself right back in it.

At least I don’t have to change her diaper. Yet.

P.S. Today is my 900th post. I’d say woot, but I hate that word.

P.S.S. If you haven’t joined the #WholeLottaLove linkup, you should! Resurrect an old blog post that needs some new life!

Tagged as: Just for Yuks