These are in no special order whatsoever, unless you count the order in which they were scribbled on the hotel notepad sheet special.

• The best toys aren’t toys at all. They could be anything:  your watch, wallet, keys, steak knives, scissors, dental floss, your old computer, the new computer, iPhone, Droid, remote control for the tv, and even the child safety locks.

• It helps to be a thesaurus (or have constant access to one) to have a conversation with a two year old…(at least it helps to think of different ways to answer the same question so you don’t go insane from repeating the same same same answers.)

• Connected with the last one, it takes a new form of stamina to answer the Toddler’s “why?”s.

• Swim diapers are NOT absorbent. I mean, AT ALL. Which makes sense if you think about the purpose, but who has time to think about that when you’re worried about your kid going under water at swim lessons?

• There are so many reasons a two year old has to speak and it is amazing that so many sentences just automatically form:

“I have it.”                  “I do it.”                      “No MINE.”

“No MY [insert noun here]”  ie: keys, diaper, toilet, beer, coffee, knife, razor…

“No MY [insert ANY word here] ie: ‘yep’, ‘nope’, ‘my’, ‘me’…

“Myself.”         “By myself.”   “On my own.”                        “My Self.”

• A two year old may not want to go to day care during the week, but during the first lull in your Saturday or Sunday will ask repeatedly if we are going.

• When on a six hour plane flight, it is apparently normal for the Toddler to ask to “get off this choo-choo train.”

• Videos of my friends’ toddlers are a Godsend during meltdowns with my toddler, especially if I can get them on his my phone.

• One version of one of the following will perpetually be running through my head at any point of any day for at least the next five years: Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Five Little Monkeys, and so on.

• While there is never any privacy for me anymore (check back for future post), and this is the hardest job I have ever had, I wouldn’t trade a moment.