20 Photos That Prove Toddlers Will Go To Any Level To Get On Our Last Nerve

Toddlers are a force of nature. They cannot be contained. You cannot predict their behavior or direction. You can try to prepare for their arrival, but 99% of them will change shit up on you at the last minute. I’m not sure what goes on in a toddler’s brain! I assume it’s just a constant swirl of blacks lines with flames and images of candy floating around. But then, after they’ve destroyed your house and reduced you to tears, they’ll toddle over for a snuggle and a kiss. Because they’re adorable, and also diabolically brilliant.

If you have a toddler, don’t worry: you are not alone in your madness. We’ve all been there, and some of us are on our way there. Solidarity with toddler parents! Life with toddlers is never boring, often hilarious, and almost always insane. It’s like they’re genetically designed to drive us absolutely bonkers, but still be so cute that the thought of selling them is fleeting. It must be a survival mechanism, right? Sort of like how our survival mechanism is to cry behind a locked bathroom door with all of the snacks you’ve been hiding from your family. The toddler years are brutal, parents. But you’ll be longing for them when your kids are smarmy teens.

Why play with one toy when you can play with EVERY toy? A toddler asks this question a million times a day.

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You think he cleaned this up? Magic 8 Ball says UNLIKELY. Every single parent feels pangs of regret so buying so many goddamn toys every time their toddler hits the play room. Why do we need LEGOs? Or puzzles? Who bought all these stupid small cars? Trains should come attached. And all dolls should include clothes and shoes that cannot be removed. Someone, probably a parent, needs to invent a line of toys that doesn’t somehow magically become 1928474 other toys in the hands of a toddler. They would make so much money, most of it coming directly from our bank account.

I wonder if this is how Gordon Ramsey got his start.

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Giving a toddler access to the kitchen rarely ends in anything but stickiness. The thing is, it’s really important to let toddlers experiment in the kitchen. It helps them develop more adventurous palates, it builds dexterity and motor skills, and it’s fun … for them. The aftermath, however, is enough to make that survival mechanism we mentioned kick into overdrive. How are they so ham-handed?! THEY LITERALLY HAVE TINY HANDS. Give a toddler a tomato and suddenly they’re the goddamn Hulk, just pulverizing it into smithereens. Utensils? Who needs those when your toddler can eat a container of yogurt with their fingers.

Artists see canvases everywhere!

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Realizing there’s a Sharpie in the jumbled box of markers and crayons: INSTANT REGRET. I sort of blame those magic markers for the writing on walls and couches and faces and everything else. You know the ones, right? They only work on certain “magic” paper, for little hands and little messes! Except then a toddler is like, well that other marker doesn’t leave marks when I drag it across mom’s new bedspread, so this one probably won’t either! Except for the little fact that they’re not ALL magic markers, you little turd. You show me a house that doesn’t have faint marker lines on at least some of the walls, and I’ll show you a house where children have never lived.

The most unhelpful helpers.

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“Awwwww, kiddo, you helped feed the dog…WAIT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?” Toddlers and dogs usually go together like peanut butter and jelly. In fact, a friend once asked how to make their toddler’s meal times less messy, and I suggested she get a dog. As much work as they can be, they more than make up for it in the cleaning up after toddlers department. The problems start when toddler want to start “helping” with the dog. Taking it for a walk, which always ends up with a crying toddler with scraped knees after the dog dragged them down the street. Or feeding the dog, which as we can see above, never goes quite as planned.

I wonder how many quarters it took to get him out.

When searching for a missing toddler, always look in the most likely places first. Toddlers live and die by the rule, It It Fits, I Sits. Except instead of sitting, they’re trying to cram themselves into the tiniest places like little Houdinis. This poor sucker just wanted a toy, which we can totally relate to on a very deep level. And when you have a toddler brain, and that brain sees the toys fall OUT of the hole, then that toddler brain is going to connect the dots. Suddenly, your kid is stuck in a claw machine and the fire department has to come and you’re on the news. Hope the cheap ass stuffed animal was worth it, buddy.

You’ll sleep when you’re dead, because they’ll probably kill you.

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Toddlers are masters at midnight calisthenics. In fact, toddlers seem to master ALL KINDS OF SKILLS from the hours of midnight to 4 a.m. What the hell is it about the middle of the night that gets them so damn riled up? It’s dark and cold and quiet and literally everyone in their house is asleep. So clearly, this is the time to go hog-ass wild and try that backflip out of the crib they’ve been pondering. Or it’s time to ask for a snack. Or a story! No good can ever come from your toddler being awake after 8 p.m. Or 6 p.m., let’s be honest.

The good thing about toddlers is that when you have one, you always have access to a gym.

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Toddlers have this weird ability to go boneless. You’ve experienced this, yes? They have a body full of bones, but when they’re being particularly toddlerish, they just crumble into a puddle of kid. But professional parents know just how to handle this. This dad has the right idea! Without skipping a beat, he grabs his groceries, grabs the kid off the ground by their jacket, and moseys on inside. It’s just second nature now. Also not a bad way to get in a quick weight-training workout! Come to think of it, between the lifting and chasing and wrestling and clamping them down, toddlers are basically a piece of mobile exercise equipment.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

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You’re never too young to learn the art of subtle makeup application. Giving your toddler some makeup and free range to go nuts on your face will always end with you looking like a howler monkey applied your makeup with a spatula on a roller coaster. The art of subtlety is not something toddlers have mastered. Brightest colors? All over your face. Ink black mascara? Seems like it would work on your cheeks! Using their fingers to apply it like they’re fingerpaints and you’re a piece of poster board? Well, that’s the easiest way to cover the most ground. It’s all fun and games until they find the makeup, you’re nowhere around, but your white throw pillow is sitting there.

Always, ALWAYS have a patsy.

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I hope that doll learned it’s lesson. You know that song “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy? Some people think it’s about a man denying to his girlfriend that he was with another woman. But in reality, it was about toddlers. Somehow (maybe magic?) there’s always a toddler in the vicinity of a giant mess and/or disaster. But inexplicably, that toddler is NEVER the responsible party! Maybe all of our toddlers come with a secret invisible friend who creates chaos everywhere they go and blames our kids. Or maybe toddlers just DGAF about your rules and refuse to conform to what society says they should and shouldn’t do.

Why do toddlers always go for the red??

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It’s like a deleted scene from The Shining. It never fails – out of allllllllll the lighter colors they can choose from, a toddler will always, ALWAYS pick red or black. Especially if it’s to do something like write on a sheet or wall. Can’t they ever choose a nice pastel? Something that could look sort of pretty if you squint at it from far away? Must they make everything look like you started Shark Week all over it? If you’ve ever wondered why a lot of moms don’t wear lipstick, this is why. It’s because we have to keep our lipsticks in childproof safes that require fingerprint identification to open, and it’s just not worth the hassle.

It’s a constant game of “How Close Can I Get to Mom?”

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That’s…pretty damn close, buddy. And that wine glass: same, mom. Same. The really funny thing about this picture is that at some point, that mom probably couldn’t pay her toddler to put his own damn shirt on. But climb into mom’s shirt? While she’s wearing it? Cool, cool, let’s totally do that! One of the hardest parts of parenting (for me, anyway) was getting used to the constant touching. It’s all the time. A toddler will get up from an open spot on the couch to scoot closer to you, just so they can rest their sweaty feet on your neck.

I mean, I get it. It’s the best part!

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Crusts are for suckers and older siblings. There should be crustless bread just for toddlers. In very small slices. Like melba toast, but not crunchy! God no, never crunchy. Soft bread middles is what they want. Even if you cut the crusts off, it’s not enough. Because you can’t get that one little crust crease around the top of the bread without messing up the shape of the bread slice. And the only thing toddlers hate more than crusts is when their bread is misshapen. So obviously, the only solution is to help themselves to an entire load and eat only the middles. They probably didn’t even close the bag after this and the rest of the bread went stale.

Toddler fingernails are basically weaponized.

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Honestly, we should just make them wear gloves all the time because of shit like this. You thought baby fingernails were bad? They’ve got NOTHING on toddler fingernails. Because toddler nails are stronger (all that calcium from the steady diet of milk and string cheese they somehow manage to survive on). They’re also jagged as hell, because you know what toddlers do? They bite their nails. But they don’t bite them like normal people. They bite them likes, just tearing off little slivers all over the nail so it feels like you’re running your hand up the back of a Komodo dragon. Plus, have you seen the grime that collects under those nails? We’re not sure if those are scratches on that seat, or the bio-hazard under the fingernail burned the shaped into the leather like acid.

Seems like a waste of time, tbh.

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It’s almost like toddlers don’t give a shit! When are we going to learn?! From the ages of 1.5 to 4, parents should just give up on cleaning their house. Organizing? Please. You can’t organize pure and total chaos. The idea is to relegate the toddler and their toys to a room no one else has to enter or look at, so when they do shit like this, it’s out of sight out of mind. Let them find the tiny puzzle piece they lost under the weeks of played-with toys! Not your problem anymore. You can start cleaning again when they’re old enough to do most of it themselves.

They’re always hungry because only 20% of food actually makes it into their mouths.

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Self-feeding is an important life skill! Sometimes I’d rather just feed mine until they leave for college. Sure, most toddlers can manage to get like, a bowl of Goldfish into their mouth. More or less. But despite what they might want to believe, a kid can’t live on Goldfish alone! You have to actually feed them real food. And toddlers are notorious for “I DO IT MYSELF!” Which is all fine and dandy until they look like a crime scene photo after a simple plate of spaghetti. The best piece of parenting advice I ever got was to feed my toddler completely naked while she sat on a trash bag on the kitchen floor. Words to live by, my friends.

Even toddlers need to practice some self-care.

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Every mom has that ONE special thing in her bathroom that she uses to escape being a mom of toddlers. An expensive face mask or lotion, a delicious-smelling body scrub, something. We keep it hidden, but toddlers have a sense of smell that could rival an actual bloodhound. So they will find it, and they open it, and they will “use” it. And you will cry and try not to completely lose your entire shit while scooping it up to salvage as much as possible. Moms don’t need a safe hiding space – they need their own damn house to keep all their things in. I bet this little toddler’s hands were super soft and smelled lovely!

Toddler or ghost? Which is worse?

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You want to know what they’ve done. Yet, at the same time, following the footsteps leads to certain doom. At some point, every parent comes to the realization that keeping anything in powdered form in your house just is not worth it. Not worth the worry over them finding it one day, not worth the stress and rage of having to clean up the mess once they do. Baby powder? God no. Powdered laundry detergent? LOL absolutely not. Flour? Nope. You can bake when they’re teenagers. Because here’s the thing: you can clean and clean and clean and you will never get all that powder off the floor/couch/bed. You will always feel like you’re walking on sand.

I blame that damn Charmin bear.

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A whole roll works as much as a couple of squares of TP, probably. If they didn’t want you to unroll the whole thing at once, why’d they make it so un-rolly, hmmmmmm? Why not make it difficult and make toilet paper rolls into squares. And then to put it right next to the toilet? We’re just asking for it. It is a scientific fact that toddlers are unable to resist putting stuff into receptacles filled with water. Toys, clothes, entire rolls of toilet paper – it’s all going in. Parents should be given gift cards to reputable plumbers as welcome baby gifts. They will 100% use those more than some stupid blanket.

You have to try them all!

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Why eat one apple when you can take bites out of all the apples? It’s a winder Snow White made it to adolescence, considering how hard it apparently is for toddlers to pass up an entire fucking bushel of apples. But this isn’t an apple-specific problem. Have you ever seen what a toddler can do to a bunch of bananas? Or a tray of Oreos? It’s like they know the rules, they know how something should be eaten, and they do not care. Not at all. Maybe the apple on far right might have tasted different from the apple on the left! You can’t just let that kind of possibility go by without testing it!

If you don’t wake up with a foot in your face, do you even have toddlers?

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Oh, I’m sorry, is my face in the way of your errant foot? MY APOLOGIES. See, once you have a baby and then a toddler, you no longer have “your” space. You no longer have YOUR anything, but space in particular. You might enjoy some of your own bed in that very short period of time your baby sleeps in their crib. But once you have a toddler, and they can get out of their bed and room? Game over. They sleep like starfish, they kick like donkeys, and they will probably pee on you at some point. Motherhood is grand.

Have we covered everything on the WTF toddlers scale? Post your pictures in the comments, show us how crazy your toddlers are, too!

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