My little dictator and the sh!t he says especially in public can often leave me desperately searching the the appropriate response while a small crowd gathers laughing…
I know I am not alone with this; toddler’s and their pronunciations mixed with brutal honesty, can often lead to some very embarrassing situations for us, the mere parents …
He stands at almost 3 feet tall and wears clothes that are age 4…he does not look like a 2 and a half year old boy nor does he sound like one!
Here are a few typical conversations I have with my wonderful, annoying, beautiful, witty dictator “D”.
“Morning mammy. Where are we going today? I am thinking it’s a day for the ‘ol park? Do you agree?”
“Sure. Let’s just have breakfast first D”
“Well, of course we will, but after breakfast we really should go to the park. You can mind my trailer while I play with my diggers. You might even meet another mammy, wouldn’t that be nice ? And then that mammy might have a toddler like me and we could be friends. No climbing on the slide ‘cos I am still only eff-ing two, I know that mammy”
I am not exaggerating. He throws this sh!t at me well before 8am on a regular basis; and yes he drops the ‘f’ bomb which I have been ignoring…which reduces his use of it by 0% (FYI)
“Let’s just get the boys off to school and relax with a cup of coffee and see what the weather is like ok”
“Yes that is a good plan mammy. Maybe we could have strawberries today with some toast and a yoghurt, did you buy my juice mammy?”
He is referring to cranberry juice which he has tasted twice in his lifetime but absolutely insists it is his juice. I buy orange juice for J, blackcurrent for Ethan and apparently cranberry for the dictator.
“No, I don’t have that juice, but I have milk”
“Aragh mammy! Milk is all you have, are you serious?”
“Yes D I am”
“But sure isn’t that the same as liquor, ‘course it is!”
Now, please don’t judge me, judge J if you like, J thought it would be so funny if D thought another name for milk was liquor… I have been correcting the dictator and not laughing for months now.
“Milk is not liquor D, I am tired of telling you that. J was only messing with you. Milk is milk, stop calling it liquor”
“I know mammy, I am only coddin’ ya…jeepers mammy, relax” (that’s all J too btw )
Our conversations in public are somewhat amusing to many strangers who happen to be in the park, playground, shopping center ….
“Well now mammy, what don’t you relax and let me run around …I won’t be long and I will just be over there”, he will walk me to the bench and point at the spot he plans to play in- this kid is not a fan of helicopter parenting and boy am I relieved he doesn’t require it.
“MAMMY! MAMMY! Did you see that toddler , he just played with me. Isn’t he cute? I wonder which one is his mammy..do you know mammy? Hello other mammys, is this one your toddler?”
I promise you, that is embarrassing…your 2 year old asking who owns which toddler …thankfully so far, all the other toddler owners laugh their asses off and answer him!
A trip to Tesco is never simple…
“I really don’t want to sit in this trolley. I don’t like it. I could get out and hold onto the bar, why won’t you just let me?”
“Because the last time you said that , we had to chase you, so now you will sit there and be quiet”
“I will sit here so but I will not be quiet, I can sing you a song, it’ll make you happy at me, ok mammy, ‘course it will”
Yeah that is very sweet and gets me every time but I think he knows it and is using it against me…
“The wheels on the bus go…” and so on and so on
“Very good, now why don’t you just finish your song so we can chat” – yes it gets old after hearing it over and over.
“Yep sure mammy. Have you money? Have you got the bread? The liquor? The eggs but I don’t want to eat them eggs and ham …oh sugar too…the coffee and tea cos I am a toddler now, I can soon have tea or coffee or hot liquor …or…”
“ ‘scuse me lady, this is my mammy and she doesn’t like shopping, she’s cranky like my grandad W too…do you know my grandad W? Maybe you know my grandad J, he is a B&B and he has nanny too and…” luckily the cashier is well used to him and laughs along.
I nod a lot and only stop to listen when I can see people laughing and asking him questions…I do feel bad that I have zoned him out but he literally does not stop talking…
A trip to good ‘ol Penneys with any child is difficult; with my dictator it is horrific …I always thought no one could out do J when it came to Penneys but dictator has gone so far beyond J that I don’t bring him in anymore.
J (when he was a dictator) used to hide things in the buggy, so I’d get stopped leaving the store, he did this in Boots too; thankfully the security men understood I wasn’t trying to steal and a very unlikely friendship began- each security guard would ask J when leaving the store had he hidden anything, J thought it was a game and would smile and point to the basket under the buggy, or he’d lift up his bum and giggle…
This dictator has a whole different angle.
“Ohhh mammy, that’s pretty, oh mammy I like that for you, mammy, mammy are you listening?”
I am in Penneys with only one child, I am rarely listening … So I nod.
“Oh mammy, I think that’s nice but not for that lady … look at her mammy, her hair is big…and I don’t know if I like it for her…”
“Hello lady , you’ve a big co*k” – this sentence made me wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole … I had no idea what the hell he was talking about but I knew that was not a word even J used …
“What D? What are you talking about pet?” – my face beetroot red while beads of sweat dripped off my forehead.
The cashier smiled and asked him to sit up on the countertop so she could see his beautiful brown eyes…I wanted to die.
“Hello lady I am D and you have a big co*k. I like it!”
She looked at me and I smiled and asked one more time “Show mammy what you are talking about please”
“The big co*k on her arm, mammy look with your beautiful eyes can you not see it?” The relief I felt when I looked at the ladies wrist.
“Clock!!! Oh yes, she has a big clock on her wrist ”
We both laughed, “I was confused there” I smiled at her as she laughed.
“Yes mammy an effin’ co*k on her risks …maybe you need glasses mammy ..see it’s a huge effing co*k”
And yeah there was now 7 or 8 people laughing while the cashier pointed at her watch.
Another time in Penneys, I was looking for ‘Mickey Mouse’ tee-shirts for Ethan when the dictator decided he should question every single customer who browsed in the same section.
“Hey Lady that’s Ethans Mickey, hands off missy”
“Hey my mammy was here first, push over there and be painted (he means patient), good lady, you’re a good girl, yes you are!”
“Are you a boy or a girl , I cannot tell , tell me person, go on don’t be shy with me”
And they are some of the reasons he is not allowed into Penneys anymore!
Finally, he is very much a sponge not only with everything you say but the way that you say; not unlike most toddlers eh?
“Can you say ORANGE mammy, can you mammy, can you pet?”
“Orange”
“No, mammy, look at my mouth pet” (he proceeds to point to his mouth as he slowly repeats the word orange ) “Or-range , now you try mammy, good girl”
He does this kind of thing so often that our close friends now use it as a catchphrase …which makes it more difficult for me to escape this little charming not at all patronising phase of toddlerhood.
In another 5 months he will turn 3 …or “become a bigger boy than I am now but not as big as J or daddy or Ethan but getting there in my time only” as he likes to say….
Toddlers eh? They sure keep us laughing … and cringing and stressing and giggling and LOV-ing!
This was originally published by Familyfriendlyhq