25 Ways You Know You're a Parent to a Toddler

1. Someone steps on your breast by mistake.

2. Your slipper is taken off and shoved into your face while you (continue to) have breakfast.

3. There is an email sitting in your inbox titled Head Lice.

4. Things like “I wish I could have a trunk like an elephant” are being said and they don’t seem all that strange.

5. Things like: “you generally shouldn’t put things in your butt. It’s a rule” are also being said.

6. There is something called an Exersaucer in the middle of your living room.

7. There’s an underwear-less 3 year old boy face down in the Exersaucer. He is yelling “help, I’m stuck on a cliff’” while in the background there is relentless hysterical infant crying.

8. Someone is conversing with you while you are sleeping.

9. Someone is conversing with you while you brush your teeth.

10. Someone is conversing with you while you are peeing and expects you to play hide and seek at the same time.

11. You’re in bed with your eyes closed and fought too hard for this that you’re not opening your eyes, even if it means letting someone walk on your rib cage, step on your head, pluck your hair out, block your airways and repeatedly respond to the question “mommy, did it tick yet?”

12. You never get to drink a cup of tea/coffee while it’s still warm.

13. You never get to finish that cup of tea/coffee, ever.

14. There’s a random high heeled shoe, an egg beater a Viking’s helmet, and a swim board on your bathroom floor.

15. You feel strangely nostalgic as you notice the high heeled shoe.

16. You consider a trip to IKEA with your husband to replace a mattress a date.

17. You wear your high heels for the first time in months and a new totally rocking faux fur vest. There’s a big Charlie Brown sticker dangling from the faux fur you’re wearing for the very first time.

18. You wake up at 7:20am. You lucky dawg!

19. You can’t name a song by Florence and the Machine or One Direction but the Excesaucer tunes are looping in your head.

20. Losing a favorite teddy is your worst nightmare. I apologize, bad choice of words. Losing a favorite teddy is a nuclear holocaust.

21. You get excited when you see a garbage truck.

22. You have to stop yourself from saying fighted, eated and breaked.

23. There are no more mid-day sweet tooth indulgences. If it’s a real emergency and you just NEED to eat your chocolate cake right now before something really bad happens, you’ll hide like the criminal that you are, so no child knows you eated it.

24. This is what a phone conversation with a friend sounds like:

Hey friend, (Yes, 3 Year Old, I’m boiling the water for your hot chocolate. Warm chocolate, sorry). Yes, friend, sorry, I’m with you now, go ahead. (Yes, 3 Year Old, I’m still boiling the water for your warm chocolate. 3 Year Old, 3 Year Old, don’t do this, you’re gonna fall!) Sorry, friend. (Oh, wow, awesome!) Sorry, yes, talk to me, I’m listening, I can talk and listen at the same time.

25. You’re at home, headed toward the kitchen. You step on something and it either starts playing music, lights up or says caterpillar power! You pick it up and put it back in its place even though you’re fully aware you’ll be tripping on it again in 10 minutes.