Most parents wish they had mind-reading powers during the newborn days, when babies are prone to fussing and crying an awful lot. “What do you want?” We plea with our infants. “A new diaper? Baba? Are you too cold? Too hot? Is your tag scratching you? Do you hate me? What is it?!”
Eventually, we figure out what our baby’s various cries and whines mean, and life gets a lot easier. You know which cry is the “hungry” one and which one means “I’m too tired to even fall asleep, please help me!” You start thinking you’ve got this whole “parenting” thing under control. “I am totally the baby-whisperer,” you think smugly to yourself as you confidently whip out a fresh diaper in response to your baby’s classic “I pooped!” cry. “Nothing can trip me up now!”
And then your kid becomes a toddler and you’re back to square one.
Trying to communicate with a toddler is, in my opinion, significantly harder than trying to interpret the cries of a newborn. The problem is twofold: for one, toddlers have so many goddamn opinions and feelings and needs. When a newborn cries, you can be almost certain that you’re dealing with either hunger, diaper trouble, physical discomfort, or sleepiness — that’s really about it. With a toddler, the problem could be that he doesn’t like what’s on TV…or you’re not reading the right book or using the right voices for each of the stupid trucks in said book…or you gave him the wrong sippy cup…or he wanted a different snack…or his tower of blocks fell down before he got to kick it down…or LITERALLY ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE (and then six million more things you never thought to imagine).
This problem is compounded by the fact that toddlers can sort of communicate, and they think that their garbled words and assorted grunts and whines are totally understandable. In reality, of course, saying “noooooo” along with some unintelligible whimpering and gesturing does NOT directly translate to “pardon me, long-suffering Mother, but I would much prefer if you would remove this offensive cheddar cheese from my lunch tray and replace it with some string cheese instead; I do thank you for your cooperation in this urgent matter.” A toddler’s sincere surprise at an adult’s inability to interpret their vague requests and complaints never ceases to amaze me. In their minds, they’re being so very clear — why aren’t we getting it?!
Unfortunately for me, Bubba is very opinionated (and I swear it’s getting worse by the day; I wasn’t kidding about the cheese mishap), and while he does know quite a few words, he doesn’t know nearly enough to really communicate with me. I’m doing my best to be a mind reader, but most of the time I end up just guessing fifty or so different options until I finally hit the jackpot. Case in point, here’s a transcript of our nightly routine, wherein I try to sing to the dear lad and he makes me shuffle through every song in my arsenal until I hit on the one he wants to hear:
Mama: I’ve been working on the railroad, all the —
Bubba: NOOOOOOOOO!
Mama: [sigh] Twinkle, twinkle —
Bubba: [sniff, sniff; nearly a sob]
Mama: Sorry! Row, row, row your —
Bubba: [kicks me in protest]
Mama: [tentatively] Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd…
Bubba: [contented smile]
JACKPOT!
It’s ridiculous, but I swear, there are few better feelings in the world than finally guessing correctly!
Of course, sometimes it’s easier than others. How many guesses do you think it took me to figure out that all he wanted to do at the park was push his stroller around the equipment?
Send help. And a psychic.
The Baby Is Fine 
Ohh, I kinda forgot about that or pushed it out of my mind. When they’re mumbling their unintelligible jabber and they get so pissed that you don’t understand it. Then they raise their voice and it gets worse. Yikes. And I get to do that all over again!
There is a nice other side. My daughter is very articulate at nearly four. On the negative side, she is very articulate when complaining and repeating curse words..
I was sitting in my yard before dinner and listened to the sweet little girls next door playing. They’re 1 and 3 and of course the 3 year old was yippy skippy & something set the 1 year old off. Her dear mother went through an amazing amount of what the problem could be. All the while I could hear grunts, shrills & hissing. Abruptly the child was happy again, so I now know she finally hit the jackpot!
As usual you are brilliant!
I still feel that way with Olivia…her speech is still sometimes difficult to understand…and I feel like the f’ing queen of the land when I finally figure out what she’s saying!!!
Haha you pretty much just wrote the story of my life right here. It’s like the whining never ends and I’m only good at guessing the problem like 10% of the time.