Anyone with kids knows that they’re not always the best to work with. They’re sometimes uncooperative, stubborn, they get distracted easily, whatever it is that keeps them from completing the task at hand.
When one woman on Twitter shared her experience watching parents struggle to do things when their babies became toddlers, other people began replying with hilarious tales of their own.
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The tweet that started it all.
“[People with] babies: I don’t see why people stop traveling when they have kids! You can just strap the baby in and GO hiking! Grab a stroller, fly to Europe, it’s really all in your mindset
“Those ppl a year later [with] a toddler: it only took us 23 [minutes] to get down the stairs this morning.”
To hell with safety!
“I had this great plan for all the things we were going to do this Saturday, and my [two-year-old] figured out how to remove his seat belt. A few miles of having to stop the car every quarter mile to buckle him back in later the plans changed to a [stay-at-home] day.”
Tried and failed.
“I also love the ‘my child will have a diverse palate’ like we all haven’t tried this and are just feeding our kids Dino nuggets [because] we hate them.”
I’m an adult and I hate trying new foods, I can’t imagine how picky I must have been as a kid.
Can’t take ’em anywhere.
“People liked to look at [me] sideways when we put our 18-month-old on a backpack leash, but anybody who has a kid who’s a runner understands. These kids turn into Usain Bolt and they don’t care if they’re running toward toys or traffic. They just wanna run.”
A little off.
“Went to the Japanese Gardens yesterday with my [six-year-old]. She had a meltdown, threw herself on the ground and stopped everyone on the path from continuing their walk. Why? because the koi fish were looking at her the wrong way.”
Bundled up.
“Has anyone talked about getting them in their coats yet, because I have stories.”
Someone had a potentially helpful tactic regarding this. They said if your kid refuses to put a coat on, bring it with you and just head out. They’ll get cold and ask for it, and after that might be more willing to put it on before leaving the house in the future.
The simplest of tasks.
“‘Carry me down these two stairs. Now I would like to walk down this one stair. No, now I will go back up 3 stairs and bounce on this stair in the middle of the staircase. Actually, now I want to go backwards down this stair, and forwards down the next while you hold my hand.'”
Natural talents.
“Actual quote from our [two-year-old] at the airport last fall: ‘I’m going to run away because it’s my job.'”
There’s usually something to be said for self-awareness, but here it doesn’t help at all because they don’t think of it as an issue. They think they were born to run.
The beginnings of a master thief.
“I was getting my [three-year-old] out of the truck yesterday and she [crawled] into the front, locked the doors, [started] grabbing all my loose change and yelled ‘this is my money now because I am a person!’….. Idek what that means?!”
A slippery task.
“[…] suncream! I was an au pair for a bit & the only way to get the fairest, palest toddler you have ever seen to wear suncream was to COVER your hands in it, pin him down (screaming) & smear as much as you could over exposed skin until he wriggled free & just hope enough stuck.”
Equal entertainment.
“My daughter is equally impressed with Kroger as she is with state parks.”
In her defense, everything is pretty mystical when you’re a kid, and Kroger has way more fun colors and characters than your average concrete skate park.
New rules.
“The difference between going out to eat with your peacefully sleeping newborn and your [15-month-old] that thinks throwing stuff to the floor is a fun game [that] cannot be calculated.”
In the far future.
“Honestly, going to the library feels like a stretch goal at this point.”
Do you trust a child to be quiet when they’re supposed to? I definitely don’t. We can read books at home.
A lose-lose situation.
“My [three-year-old] literally asked me to move the sun out of the sky [because] it was in her eyes then my son (6) said no [because] it was too cold in the ‘dark sun’ (shade) & this was just walking around the park […].”
A change in expectations.
“We go to the beach a few hours away and it’s like we’re heading out on the Oregon Trail.”
And they say the beach is supposed to be relaxing. That’s not universal, it’s conditional.
