When you have kids, people tell you a lot of things. Everyone tells you that you’re not going to sleep for at least a year. They tell you that kids are expensive, start saving for braces. They tell you that kids are finicky eaters. They tell you that tuition will cost $100,000 a year by the time your kid will be going to State. They tell you that you can kiss your hobbies goodbye. No more model trains or triathlons or furry porn…whatever you’re into, you won’t have time for it anymore. When you have kids, people tell you all kinds of things about how to get a baby to sleep, or how to transition from training wheels to a big boy bike.
But when you have kids, nobody bothers to tell you that one day, for no reason whatsoever, your kids will decide that they don’t want to look at doors anymore and will cover their eyes when approaching a door of any kind. The front door, the car door, the bathroom door at the mall… It will happen when you’re late for ballet. Or trying to get to church, or the bank before it closes. Maybe it’ll be a Tuesday or a Saturday, I don’t know, but it will happen and it will completely shut you down for 24 hours.
It’s tough enough to get my kids out the door on a good day, throw in “door-a-phobia” and suddenly, I’m operating way above my pay grade. My kids have a 70 percent success rate of walking through a door without suffering head trauma when they’re using all five senses. Take away sight and the success rate drops drastically. I can’t wait to try to explain this to DSS.
And forget trying to reason with your child. They’re three. There’s no reasoning with a three year old. You can bribe, but you can’t reason. And forget trying to ask your child why they suddenly can’t stand to look at a door anymore, because they’ll give an answer that goes something like this: “well, if I don’t want to look at doors anymore, then I don’t want to look at doors anymore.”
When you have kids, nobody tells you that those kids will do strange things, like try to lick you, or only eat orange food, or refuse to flush the toilet because they can’t bare to say goodbye to their poop, or suddenly decide that they don’t want to look at doors anymore.
When you have kids, nobody tells you that those kids will be weird.
Daddy Drinks 
Lol, weird is true.
Ah, making memories are you? 😉
Beware, here there be children!
I remember doing some weird things as a kid, but it’s a foggy, distant memory that had something to do with jumping from chairs to couches because “the floor is lava” type stuff.
Oh yeah, we’ve got a lot of hot lava in our house.
If anybody told us the truth, we wouldn’t have them.
That was a great read! Made me smile for the first time all day!
“My kid is the reason they put that warning on the side of five-gallon buckets.” My friend said that one day while we were at the beach and her son had just tripped over his feet onto a pile of shells for what must’ve been the 9th time. I ask you, which is worse: weird or clumsy?
I had no idea there’s a warning label on five gallon buckets. And I’ve been using them for all kinds of debauchery for years.
My son has a new thing when he tells me things like “Mommy don’t be mean to me” and “But it’s not fair” when I tell him to go to bed at night or to put on his shoes. I’m not sure why they still climb onto the sink via the toilet when there are two perfectly good step stools in front of the counter, or why my daughter thinks everything is better “with a song”. I think it’s a kid thing. Celebrate the weird and quirky, we do and I think we are happier for it…
If it’s any consolation, at least doors can be avoided (to an extent) my daughter is terrified of vegetables. Just don’t tell her what’s in that “new cookie recipe” she loved so much 😉
Hilarious. I am looking forward to reading more of your blog.
We didn’t tell you about the doors because doors are a kid specific thing. Our own personal parenthood traumas are usually left in the dark in the closet covered in the 5 gallon bucket with a warning we never saw.
Those of us that are telling you about braces and tuition didn’t have the luxury of internet blogs (me) to understand that the oddities of child-rearing weren’t focused on MY HOUSE ALONE. We thought we were ‘the only ones’!
I had crocodiles under my bed but I thought that was pretty common. Doesn’t everyone when they are three?
Don’t you love the random fears? I think I’ve blocked out all that my older one had. Now that’s he’s five he’s decided to be terrified that the Elf on the Shelf in going to come into his room at night. I’m trying to capitalize on that one. “If you’re not good, Protocol will be staring in your face when you wake up!” Doors are tricky though. Good luck.
Most of my children’s fears are food related. It’s likely my fault from telling them all the stories about how we shouldn’t be picky because “When I was a kid, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of money to spare, so we learned to use the whole animal and often G-pa made Tiny Chicken (squirrel).” Now every meal begins with, “Are there guts in here?” or “Did this thing used to have a face?” *sigh*
Lovely post!
LOL, this brought back memories. The poo doodler, the soap drinker, the niece that thought Vaseline was hair conditioner. My whole family should come with a warning label: “May Contain Weirdness!”
Good luck with the doors.