My Funny Little Family

I love two-year-olds. I learned this eight years ago when I used to work with them at a day care center. Over the years I have slowly forgotten why. My two-year-old is currently doing a fantastic job of reminding me. It is so fun to watch their minds and their reasoning develop, but best of all their little senses of humor.

The other day we were watching Madagascar for the first time. V’s eye were glued on the screen, and I knew he was enjoying seeing all these jungle animals so animated (his room is decorated with a jungle theme, he can name them all). It wasn’t long until he started to show me that he really was understanding a lot more than I thought. He made a few comments about what was going on that really impressed me, but the kicker came just after the zebra in the story says, “I don’t know if I am black with white stripes or white with black stripes.” When V heard that he laughed and said, “That funny. Zebra’s black stripes.”

Sunday night as we were preparing for bed I decided I was just too tired to put V to bed in his own bed. After two weeks of vacation, going to bed late every night, I knew it would not be a quick and easy task. I decided to let him sleep in our bed, hoping this would help me get to sleep sooner. He was still wound up and not happy about going to bed, so I decided to tell him a story. About halfway through “The Three Little Pigs,” Daddy fell asleep and started to snore. This was apparently unacceptable to the two-year-old. Every time Daddy would inhale loudly, the two-year-old would yell “Stop it!” at him, yelling louder with each breath. Daddy sleeps like a bear underwater with ear plugs and didn’t hear a word of it. I wish I had a sound clip for you. Snore…”Stop it.” Snore…”Stop it!” Snore…”STOP IT!”

I was beginning to worry that I was going to go mad before I even got a wink of sleep. I was pretty sure both of them could continue like this all night long. But what was I to do? If I went to sleep on the couch, V would follow me and then I would never get to sleep. If I told Daddy he was snoring he would simply apologize and then quickly go back to doing so. If I killed them both in their sleep, I’d have to dispose of the bodies–which would surely take all night. Before I could decide on a plan of action, V solved the problem for me. He poked daddy in the eye. Daddy woke up enough to stop snoring and reposition himself so he wouldn’t any more. Finally I was able to sleep!