7 Ways Toddlers Insist on Being Assholes

Here's the thing about kids: they are assholes.

They don't care about you. As long as you are meeting their ransom demands, the rest of your life is irrelevant.

And in the event that you are not meeting aforementioned demands -- let's say you make soup for dinner and they "HATE THIS STUPID SOUP WITH THE STUPID CARROTS," and think you are actually "THE WORST COOKER EVER OF ALL COOKERS" -- you're probably going to either A. Get screamed at, B. End up wearing the soup, C. Get kicked in the shin, or D. All of the above, plus pooped on.

And there you have it; Act of Assholery #1: Mealtime Mayhem

The struggle is real.

Act of Assholery #2: Bathtime Shenanigans

Giving your 2- and 4-year-old a bath is like bathing a couple of thrashing Loch Ness Monsters. A standard bath just isn't enough for them. Case in point: While trying to wash breakfast's -- now solid -- yogurt out of the 2-year-old's hair, the 4-year-old decides now would be a great time to test the laws of physics by standing on the bathtub edge, thus falling into said bathtub and subsequently A. Whacking their now brain-damaged head on the back of the tub, and B. Attempting to drown the 2-year-old in a tsunami of shampoo water.

Act of Assholery #3: Mealtime Misery

Let's say it's 7 p.m. on a Thursday night. All you can think about is watching Grey's Anatomy Season 8, Episode 1. Because hello, is Christina going to get an abortion? And, yeah, the show is on Season 12, but it's taken you four years to get from Season 6 to Season 8.

You are exhausted because your asshole 4-year-old woke you up at 2 a.m. because they wanted to take their shirt off/pee/have water/tell you about the dream they had about Disneyland/ask you where the sun goes at night. And even after the 2 a.m. slap in the face, you worked all day and then did two loads of laundry and picked up both cat barf AND dog poop and cooked and served dinner to them (Bonus Assholery: Your partner is not home to help; the natives sense your weakness).

You've done nothing but get ketchup/water/ranch and spend an hour in hostage negotiation -- for food.

Act of Assholery #4: Poopus Interruptus

7:30: You finally fall into a chair to eat your -- now freezing -- dinner.

This seems like an excellent time for your 3-year-old to start screaming from the bathroom, "I POOPED, MOMMY. I POOOOOPED."

Now, I'm not saying they save pooping for when you have literally just sat down. I'm just saying, they definitely save poop for when you've just sat down. Also note: they will always call for you if you are the most tired of any available adult.

Act of Assholery #5: Sexual Sabotage

If can get past Act of Assholery #1, and bathe them and get them to bed -- after 11 books and seven drinks of water -- And your partner is home (or they aren't and you have a Hitachi, whatever). It's time to get biz-ay.

Herein lies the real irony: You have sex to have kids (generally speaking, anyway) and then they spend their entire childhood trying to prevent you from ever having it again.

They hate you.

They will want: Water, food, water, a story, a snack, a hug, the nightlight on, music, water, the nightlight off, another snack, to know where babies come from, a hug, the music off, to get in your bed.

And you know what you will want? AN ORGASM.

Nope.

Act of Assholery #6: Orgasm Obstruction

If you're lucky enough to actually appease the little tyrants long enough to get naked...I think you know where this is going.

Fifteen seconds from orgasm, they are coming in. Your room. Probably screaming. Definitely crying.

Further, they are going to ask A. Why is mommy naked? B. Daddy can I play horsey on mommy, too? C. Was mommy bad? Why is she getting a spanking? Or D. All of the above.

No O for you.

Act of Assholery #7: Sibling Rivalry

If you can actually manage to have sex, and enough of it that you can actually make yet another tiny asshole, brace yourself for double Assholery.

Every time you sit down to nurse the baby, your tandem nursing toddler is going to rip your shirt off Hulk-style because it is "THEIR BOOBIE," or if you're not tandem nursing, and therefore not lucky enough to have a boobie-lure to keep them trapped/quiet for 15 minutes, they are going to dump the contents of the entire refrigerator onto the floor or put an entire roll of toilet paper in the toilet (and not flush because why wouldn't you want to fish soggy TP out of a poop-filled bowl of toilet water).

Or maybe they'll jump off some elevated piece of furniture that is low enough for them to not die, but high enough for it to warrant medical care.

This concludes our most obvious acts of Assholery. You're going to have kids anyway though, because they are just cute with their cute little faces and their sweet-smelling heads and their tiny fingers and the way they will absolutely crush your dreams.

That last one not so much.

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This story by Joni Edelman first appeared at ravishly.com .

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