TINTIS
TINTIS: Things I Never Thought I’d Say
Having a child creates a wide variety of strange and perplexing situations. Most of which find you on the edge of the Giant Meltdown. Or at least the threat of the Giant Meltdown. Parents will do almost anything to avoid a Giant Meltdown: get another toy that will be forgotten next week, drive the long way home, buy their way into Yale so they can be President, etc. Currently I find myself trying to talk my way out of Giant Meltdowns or even Moderate Meltdowns and I thought this would be a good place to compile those expressions.
Taken out of context, they’re kinda funny. Taken in context, they’re really funny. So here we go.
“No, that treadmill doesn’t allow dinosaur boots.” — Costco, 10/3/08
“Sorry, you can’t take the guitar in the bath.” — Bedtime, 10/5/08
“I don’t think you should play the harmonica while eating macaroni and cheese.” – Dinner, 10/14/08
“Go potty first and then you can touch the witch.” — Bathroom, 10/20/08
“We don’t throw monkeys.” — Bedtime, 10/23/08
“I think you need to take your socks off before getting in the tub.” — Bathroom, 11/22/08
“Hold on Besh–you have chicken in your eye.” – Dinner, 12/6/08
“You don’t get an M&M for pee pee, only for poo poo.” — Bathroom, Numerous
“You can play with the train but only if you take your pants off first.” – Sara (while trying to get Besh to change into warmer clothes), 1/24/09
“Beshaboo–you need to stay in the clothes you are wearing. When I pick you up–unless you have an accident–you need to be in all of those clothes you’re wearing now. That includes your new shorts and your underwear.” — Sara, dropping off Besh at school the day after Commando!, 2/19/09
“Please take the fork out of the wall.” — At Waterloo, where he had wedged a fork in between the wooden planks on the “shack” wall, 3/14/09
“We don’t bite toilet paper.” — Bathroom, 5/4/09
“Please be gentle when you’re eating my nose.” – Bedtime, 6/12/09
“Do you want to go look for a monkey cutter this weekend?” — On phone with Besh, 7/10/09 (monkey cutter would be something to cut a sandwich in the shape of a monkey, of course)
“No thanks, Besh, I don’t need stickers on my underwear.” — Bedroom, 11/18/09
“We don’t take the TiVo into the bathroom.” — Bathroom, 11/25/09 (talking about the stuffed TiVo doll which he had strapped into the doll stroller he likes to push around. But if he’d been talking about a real TiVo I would have said the same thing.)
“Please don’t rub your penis on the puzzle.” — Sara to Besh in our bedroom, 12/8/09
“But, honey, they don’t sell cataracts at the craft store.” — Sara to Besh on why his Cataract Countdown Calendar, counting down the days to his cataract surgery, had numerous googly eyes on it but none with cataracts. 9/20/10
“Just play with the tampons while mommy goes potty.”
[...] Oh, and Sara’s parting words to Besh this morning at school did, as predicted, make it to TINTIS. [...]
“If you have to poop, let’s go do it in the potty. We don’t poop on the floor.”
Those remind me of something a preschooler said to my sister once while she was working in their after-school program. He runs up on the playground yelling, “Miss Jenni, Miss Jenni! We don’t eat paper towels!” I’m still not sure what the appropriate response to that one is.