I could replicate nearly every single one of those pictures. I call our 21 month old “Destructo-Toddler.” It’ll pass – and it’s really taught me to be less attached to material possessions because I never know what he might destroy. I have to not care.

It is hard to believe that a little person can be so cute and also so naughty! My 18 month old has to be the cutest baby boy I have ever seen and he is sooo funny. But there are days I just wanna run away because he can literally have every toy on the floor in less than a minute, empty the bottom 2 drawers in the kitchen in less than 30 seconds and even when I am sitting right next to the bookshelf telling him, “Don’t even think about it!” he still grabs for and occasionally rips a book. Lately it is the phone books. He also has a deep admiration for the toilet…not his potty chair, that he will pee on the floor while standing next to it instead of sitting on it and doing his business…he has figured out how to open doors and will walk in on me doing my business and flush the toilet before I am done. Out of nowhere he has suddenly started pinching and biting, and a week ago while I was getting some milk for his sippy cup he bit me right in the crotch and drew blood. He now fights naps so if he is late getting one it is world war III and by bedtime I have seen my entire floor disappear at least 2 dozen times. I know he is struggling with independance. I just wish he would do it with less cleaning up after.

LooIf this was the worst my kid did daily I would think. myself lucky. And Lola, judge me all u want. But untill u have walked a mile in my shoes, I don’t wanna hear it.

To Lola- do you even have children? I could add SOOOO much to this list! I have 2 boys (4 and 3) and a 19 month old girl- They are destructors to the max!!! They are like a small demolition crew! I feel your pain!

Oh gosh… my 2 year old son is in this phase too. The pots & pan (now locked away), all the kitchen utensils, all of his clean clothes and cloth diapers, books, paper and markers, all of his toys (god how I hate blocks now)… it just never ends. It’s winter in Nebraska so some days we are just stuck in the house – and I’m 7 mo pregnant so pretty low on energy. I keep trying to teach him to pick things up but so far no dice.

We have called my 2 y/o daughter destructo-baby at times LOL. She’s really not that bad by herself but get her together with her 3 y/o cousin and they can make the biggest messes in such a short period of time. My SIL watches my daughter when I go to school and these two babies decided to play with the water cooler and the kitchen floor was covered in water and my niece even put a cookie in the space where it collects water in case you over fill your cup. Both of the girls were wet too. They know better now so they don’t play with it anymore thank goodness.

lola obviously does not have children ……. i hate when ppl without children sit back and judge … u have no idea … and until u do shut ur mouth

Nah, you really can’t teach them not to play with whatever they want to play with. We’ve actually had to put an armchair sideways down in front of the TV to stop our mad tiny thing from smashing the expensive TV in smitherines.
It’s ignorance (or someone without a toddler) to think you can just ‘teach’ them not to play with naughty things. Toddlers do exactly what they want to do, but with a little redirection and few tantrums they eventually learn mama doesn’t like it when you throw spoons at her … so they do it a bit harder, just to let her know it’s been absorbed.

OMG, I’m so glad I’m not alone. My friends and family seem to have no idea what I’m up against, and I too call my oldest the destruct-or. The laundry is the one I hate the most because I never can get caught up when they fling clean clothes out of the drawers into a big pile on the floor and top it with dirty clothes, juice and shredded cheese. I’m to the point where I’m thinking about moving to a nudist colony so it won’t be an issue anymore. Now my kids are ages 1, 4 and 5, so it’s getting easier in the sense that the messes are less frequent, but the 5 year old is on the spectrum so one meltdown can accumulate a mess that will take me a week to clean.

Before someone like Lola gets on here and comments, you make a trade. The kids who are very clean and well packaged into other people’s paradigms are generally not the brightest of the bunch. You, the pearl clutching Judgey McJudgerson with the perfect kids, substitute divergent thinking skills, creativity, independence and curiosity with coloring in the lines, follow the rules, do what other people have done, don’t try because you are not allowed to play with that, don’t explore because you might make a mess… That’s why your kid is probably not that bright, and/or he/she is and is developing some interesting psychological issues they can discuss with Freud once they start hallucinating him.

As far as advice if you got kids like this… I created a safe room. It’s a small bedroom where I store all my office supplies and tupperware lids (most importantly the MARKERS my walls look awful) and other random things I’m sick of her getting into. I use a regular door knob that locks but like a penny or butter knife will open it. I also got a manly toolbox that has locking drawers to store things where I hang the keys high up on the wall. Kitchen utensils in a drawer seem to attract the kids to taking them, but if you put them in a ceramic container on your countertop pushed back, my kids won’t bother it there. I put the pizza cutter, meat and candy thermometer and other items like that in a small tupperware with lid that’s not easy to open in a cabinet high up, and the moment I see a kid interested in it, it goes outside for a couple days so they think I threw it away. I’m also trying to reduce any unnecessary clutter. If I find myself picking up the same things from the floor one too many times, I throw it away. Books… the easiest solution is get rid of books and get a Kindle, but I can’t afford one so my books are in the safe room. DVDs were one I hate to pick up off the floor. The kids think they are flying discs. We do Zune now and save movies to a USB thumb drive. I throw away most DVD’s that are scratched or won’t work.

The main thing though is with kids like this you NEED help, like someone to help clean or someone to watch the kids while you clean. If you are like me and can’t get help even if you pay them 10 bucks an hour, wine helps. Red wine is healthy too. Mix it with Sprite if you don’t like the taste. Wait until another responsible adult is around before finishing the bottle in one sitting.

I literally lol’d at the books, because my husband and I deal with this daily. Our 2 year old son does almost every single one of these things. And some of the ones that people have mentioned in the comments (blue Sharpie=Smurf child). It can drive you absolutely insane, but it’s part of how toddlers learn, so I try not to sweat it too much. And to Lola-why so harsh? My son is incredibly smart and well behaved, but he’s 2. One of the reasons he pulls the books off of the shelf is because he loves to read them.