As a parent, you can’t remember a fraction of the funny things your toddler says. Here’s a list of things I’ve remembered from the past few months. Any parent will love and relate to this. And I imagine non-parents will find at least one of these things pretty funny.
List of fun things Ivy has said recently:
She has an obsession with puppets. Everything is a puppet. Feet, books, toys, real puppets, waffles. You name it, I promise it can be a puppet.
She hands me a real puppet, that can be put on my hand, and says, “Here, say, ‘me a puppet.’”
Later I ask, “Oh, did you make me some food?” She replies, “No. It’s for puppet.”
The other day I was writing in my journal and Ivy was hovering over my shoulder.
“Do you want a sticker?” She asked.
“Sure, I’ll take a sticker,” I replied without looking up. I continued writing.
“Do you want a sticker?”
“Yes, Ivy, I’ll take a sticker.” I don’t look up and continue to write.
“Do you want a sticker?”
“Yes,” I say and finally look up. She’s staring at the journal. “Oh.” I shake the journal like it’s talking, “Yes, I’ll take a sticker.” She looks pleased and starts putting stickers on my journal while I write. She was just going to sit there and talk to my journal until I got it through my thick skull that she wasn’t talking to me, apparently.
She then said, “Foot want a sticker, puppet?”
The journal has to shake and say, “Yes, of course foot wants a sticker.”
She then puts multiple stickers on my foot and says, “That’s better.”
On the “ignoring me” note. Sometimes I’ll say stuff to her, and she’ll just stare straight ahead and ignore me.
The other day Beth said, “She doesn’t do that with me. She only ignores you like that.”
It wasn’t twenty minutes prior that Ivy was saying something repeatedly over and over and I ignored her and said, “I can play the ignore game indefinitely.” I wasn’t being mean. She was just talking nonsense over and over in my direction and I wasn’t paying attention. If you’re a parent of a toddler, you understand.
Like I said, it was 20 minutes later that I was asking a question straight to her face and she ignored me like a pro. Deadpan. Stared straight ahead. Like she couldn’t even hear me. I said to her, “Learned behavior, I respect it.”
The other day she woke up from a night’s sleep. I walked into her room and said, “good morning, how are you?” She looked up at me from her pillow, sat up, and said, “I want to cook. Anyone want food?”
She also wants to be referred to as a teacher pretty constantly. Throughout the day if you call her Ivy she’ll reply, “me a teacher.” You then have to call her teacher to get a response.
Toddler hack that I don’t know will work on any other toddler. Like I said, she loves puppets for some reason. Her love goes so far as to be respect, apparently. Ivy is pretty good about bedtime: brushing teeth, putting on diaper, putting on pajamas, and getting into bed. But, if we do have trouble with any of those steps, if a puppet gets involved and asks for the teeth to get brushed, she’s immediately compliant. I don’t know if she loves, respects, or fears puppets more.
We are on the tail end of potty training, she’s pretty much there. The other day I put her on the potty and told her to let us know if she needed anything. I left her stool at her feet and walked out. This wasn’t the first time I’d done this. What made this time unique was Beth and I, from the couch, could hear her in the bathroom singing. Then suddenly *clapping. “Is she clapping?” We said to each other.
She walked out, shut the door behind her, and said, “me pooped.” She gave herself a round of applause, shut the door, then came out to exclaim that she had pooped.
The other day she started teaching Sage how to pray. She grabbed Sage’s arms and folded them and whispered, “Heavenly Father. Thank you. Amen.” Then she said, “Good job Sagey!”
I was at a restaurant with Ivy after a basketball game and the person I was with was asking if she wanted brown or white rice in the bowl Ivy and I would be sharing. I thought about it and said brown. He said he thought kids preferred white rice. I said that was probably true, but I was being selfish. That was it. End of discussion about brown rice. For the past 4 months Ivy, every single day and night, when in her room and she’s playing with her kitchen, asks us if we want brown rice. She’ll come up and put her hand on your knee or shoulder and say, “You want brown rice Daddy?” I almost never get my brown rice, for the record.
On the topic of somehow picking up on something and never letting it go. I had this book I was reading that Ivy got ahold of and drew all over the cover with black sharpy. You’d be amazed at how calmly I took this. Anyway, one day I had the book and I said to Ivy, “Ivy, this book is so good. I might give it to my friend Zach. What do you think he’ll think of your additions?”
I don’t remember her response. What I do remember is every time she’s seen that book since she’s asked, “Daddy give to Zach?” Zach then became somewhat of a celebrity in our house. She’ll just randomly be like, “Does Zach have knees?” (Real thing she asked). Along with tons of other random statements and questions about Zach.
This is just the beginning of Ivy Thoughts. I’m already well into Part 2. More to come. Hope you enjoyed!
