Why I Love Toddlers (And I Am Mostly Sane)

Toddlers are kind of like escaped insane asylum patients who you are forced to feed a strict diet of noodles and applesauce and then they are allowed to touch your eyeballs while you are sleeping.

But, they are also like the naked truth of humanity walking around doing everything that we secretly WANT to do but have learned through societal norms that we must NOT do. Yes, there are many reasons why I love toddlers. (Well, at least mine. Yours is kind of annoying.)

1. They are adorable enough during even the worst temper tantrum that you never actually toss them from a high place. How is it possible that I can find the enraged, snot-streaked face hollering at me still one of the cutest things ever? Must be a survival of the species thing.

2. They feel ALL the feelings. This can definitely work against you if they happen to miss seeing the random cow you pointed out during a car ride. But they also have so much love to give! Like a short, creepy stalker kind of love, but still.

3. They help you gain upper body strength with all the shoe-wrestling and clothes-putting-on and tooth-brushing. I will sometimes pick my toddler up in the middle of a tantrum and she is kicking so hard in my general direction that I have to hold her at arm’s length to get her to time-out without me receiving bodily injury. But my Deltoids are amazing!

4. They live in the moment. You, as their parent, can learn to appreciate the pretty flowers on the side of the road while you are on your hands and knees with a box of wipes and a soaked and unwilling version of yourself. And don’t forget about appreciating the “I love you Mommy song” in the gas station rest room that might go on for a good long time while you try to get them to concentrate on what they are doing. So sweet.

5. They try SO hard. The determination! The commitment! I wish I could sell the single-minded focus my child gives to convincing me she needs to wear her tutu with everything.

6. Their wants are still so simple. Rocks. Water. Tupperware. Day made.

7. You are pretty much a superhero. You probably won’t ever feel as loved as you do when the preschool teacher is physically wrenching your small toddler away from you at drop off.

8. You can still fool them a little. They actually believe you when you say that eating their vegetables will make them grow big. They don’t always care, but they believe you.

9. They get excited about…freaking everything. I wish I could muster the same amount of excitement for my life as my toddler does about simply going through a car wash.

10. They still want to cuddle and they still might call cantaloupe, “camel milk.” Their babyhood is leaving and you will have to tell them the proper way to say stuff eventually, but not today. And if they go to Kindergarten still calling a dump truck a dumb f*ck, well, they should have thought of that before they Sharpied the window sills.

Related post: Three is More Terrible Than Two