New parents are excited about milestones - the first smile, first tooth, first birthday, first steps - but the parents who have been there and done it know some milestones are insidious and once that milestone has been achieved you can't undo it. Like the homemade tattoo you got when you were 19.
Learn from us new parents; these are the milestones you want to put off for as long as humanly possible.
Remember how cute you thought it was when you’d play hide and seek with your toddler and you’d find him standing in the centre of a room with his eyes closed because he thought if he couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see him.
Cherish that.
Because one day he will learn how to hide for real and you’ll find yourself having to close down an entire store because he’s hidden in the centre of a clothing rack and won’t answer when you call.
I know you think you want your child to walk, especially if you are in the midst of the back breaking stage where you need to monitor every step and spend 10 hours a day holding his hand while bent over in a Quasimodo hunch. But once your cute toddler has mastered walking it quickly turns into running which then turns into running away in public. And don’t let those cute little chubby legs fool you; they not only move fast, directional changes happen in mere milliseconds.
RELATED: Hitting Milestones and Making Memories
This stage is often accompanied by you fantasizing about purchasing that child harness you swore you’d never use.
No, your phone company won’t remove the charges for a three hour phone call to China and yes, 911 will call back if your child dials it and then hangs up.
Kids have bionic ears and even though they are in an entirely different room watching a dancing purple dinosaur on television while stuffing Cheerios into their mouth, they will hear the one word you don’t want them to hear and then spend an entire year calling you a “fucken” every time you are out in public.
Oh, sure. It looks like so much fun. You get to go out and buy a big kid bed and redecorate an entire room in a Construction or Princess theme but you know who doesn’t stay in a bed? Every single toddler in the world who has realized he is no longer caged in.
Welcome to your new game show life “Where Will My Toddler Be When I Wake Up?”
Remember the good old days when you could put your child to bed because you were tired? One of the saddest days of my life was when my boys were taught how to tell time in school. Schools are basically responsible for torturing us through sleep deprivation and it needs to stop. In my opinion, telling time should be removed from the curriculum and left to the parents’ discretion.
P.S. This is also around the time your child will realize all those times you said “In just a minute” you were lying.
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