A Dose of Humor: United Toddler’s Union

5 Minutes for Parenting’s weekly column, A Dose of Humor, is here to remind you to take your humor pill regularly as the best medicine to treat the side effects of parenting! It features a different blogger every week and is hosted by Rachel at Grasping for Objectivity.

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United Toddler’s Union (UTU)

New Policies and Announcements

December 2009

To all UTU Members:

Hello and congratulations on making it to another December. We know you don’t understand months and calendars and such, but trust us: this is the month that all toddlers dream of. The month where your parents are actually listening closely to the things you say that you want so that they can toil in long lines and sit in traffic to buy them for you to make your Christmas dreams come true.

Be sure to enjoy this month. Enjoy it well.

But don’t get so caught up in the euphoria of the season that you neglect your Union Duties.

We have a few new policies and procedures in place that we want to make sure everyone is putting into practice.

First of all: We have noticed an increase in parents answering questions without thinking about them first. To counteract this alarming trend, we are immediately enacting an across-the-board source checking policy. It doesn’t matter how unimportant the question is, or if you already know the answer (after all, aren’t 90% of toddler questions unnecessary because the answer is already known?) – check your sources!!

For example, all conversations should go as follows:

Toddler: “Daddy, What’s that ornament?”

Daddy: “That’s a snowman riding a bicycle.”

Toddler: “Mommy, what’s that ornament?”

Mommy: “That’s a snowman riding a bicycle.”

Toddler: “Daddy, what color is this light?”

Daddy: “You know what color it is – it’s red.”

Toddler: “Mommy, what color is this light?”

Mommy: (sound effect of parent dying a little inside)

Toddler (louder): “Mommy, what color is this light?”

Mommy: (whimper) “Red.”

We HAVE found that these repeated unnecessary questions and redundant source checking may have harmful side effects to the mental health of the parents concerned, but we don’t feel that the risks are adverse enough to be concerned about at this point.

Second Policy change: Set all of your questions on repeat mode until you get an answer. Also, only leave one tenth of a second in between repetitions of said question to basically make it impossible for the parent to even form the answer in their mind before the third repeat of the question.

Example:

Toddler: “Can I have some pink Ice Cream? Can I have some pink Ice Cream? Can I have some pink Ice Cream?”

Parent (who, if you have your settings correct, should actually have to INTERRUPT the fourth cycle of the question to answer the previous one): “No, baby – you just ate cake. And just ask once, please.”

Toddler: “Can we go to Gramamma’s? Can we go to Gramamma’s? Can we go to Gramamma’s?”

Parent: “No, it’s naptime, baby.”

Toddler: “Can we read one more book? Can we read one more book? Can we read one more book?”

Which brings us to our third policy modification: I’m sure that you’ve noticed that a large amount of children’s books have veered away from the traditional core of “teach values to toddlers” and now are more geared towards “guilt parents into thinking that they stink as parents and need to immediately do more for their toddler”. Especially the books sent by Dolly Parton’s reading program. Be sure to always pick one of these guilt-ridden books when asking for your last read before bed, all while giving guilt-inducing puppy-dog eyes.

Example books include:

• “Momma Will You?” – the whole point of this book is the child asking annoyingly repeatedly to do things, and the Momma answering so lovingly and doing even MORE for the child than they even asked.
• “I Love You Mommy” and “I Love You Daddy” – full of reasons why a toddler would love their parent, therefore making the parent feel the need to immediately take said toddler to the park, play basketball with them, and take them on a weeklong camping trip to attain their undying toddler affection.
• And, of course, the sibling books. To really get those parents of yours to hurry on up and produce you a sibling.

That sums up the changes for this month. If you notice any mental stability changes in your parents from these new policies, be sure to report it immediately so that we can get our Secret Union Representative, Dolly Parton, to send some more guilt-ridden books your their way.

Enjoy your holidays, and be sure to ask for one of those freaky electronic hamster things!

Sincerely,

The United Toddler’s Union.
Rachel blogs daily at Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life.

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