Nina In New York: Once A Dummy, Always A Dummy
A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak
Last week, I took my two-year-old daughter on a road trip to go visit friends who live 200 miles away.
Let me rephrase that: I voluntarily chose to drive a total of 400 miles, alone, with a toddler in the backseat.
Here is some peripheral information, in case that still strikes you as a good idea:
- I hate driving.
- I am terrified of dying in a fiery wreck caused by another driver's recklessness despite my own conservative driving habits and obsession with highway caution. It's one of my greatest fears, right behind shark attack and ahead of death by bedbug siege.
- My daughter hasn't taken a legitimate nap or slept a full night in over a week.
- Incidentally, she has also recently discovered deep within herself the true core of her tantrum-throwing abilities.
- Traffic is a thing.
Frankly, you shouldn't need to know any of this in order to know that driving a toddler to Massachusetts and back without any other adult in the car is probably inadvisable. And yet, even with an abundance of facts, my instincts proved once again to be relatively worthless. Of course, I know that I'm not unique in this regard. Nor is this the first time I've made such an idiotic and obviously poor error in judgment. So in the hopes of sparing other parents out there some of the pain I've inflicted upon myself for no reason whatsoever, here's a little list of things not to do with your kid. These may sound stupid, but that's just because they are.
- If your toddler is undergoing a sleep regression that requires that you now lie on the floor of her room for an hour in order to cajole her into taking a brief snooze, do not let her consume an entire bottle of some mysterious, sugar-jacked Japanese soft drink twenty minutes before her scheduled nap. It was nice of the woman in the sushi place to give it to her for free, and it did end her tantrum, but stay strong.
- No matter how much she promises, don't believe your toddler when she tells you she can drink a colored liquid from a big girl cup while walking.
- If there is even one non-washable crayon in the box, it will wind up all over your couch. Dispose of it immediately.
- Just because your child is technically under the threshold for being legally required to have her own seat on a plane doesn't mean you have to endure an eight-hour flight and three connections with a two-year-old the size of a three-year-old on your lap.
- Never joke with a two-year-old that it's nap time when it isn't. Two-year-olds DO NOT UNDERSTAND NAP JOKES.
- If your kid doesn't know that Frozen exists, and she seems content in that life of ignorance, there really is no reason to show her YouTube clips of the song "Let It Go". That is, of course, unless you enjoy listening to it endlessly for the rest of your life and possibly longer.
- Do not warn in advance of sunscreen application. Do not discuss the merits of sunscreen application. Just attack.
- Chapstick is baby crack.
- Get off the phone. Get off the phone. Now, do it now. Get off your—too late! She spotted it. Now it belongs to her.
- Never, never, ever let a two-year-old loose in a giant toy store with the directive to "pick out a special present." It. Will. Backfire.
Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!
