My two-year old, after drawing all over the TV screen with crayon, managed to hit some combination of buttons that has left me with a purple screen I can’t get rid of. No picture. Just what looks like a super close-up of Barney’s hind quarters. Or maybe Smurf porn.
Wife is out of town on business, and while I was attempting to address the TV issue, the boy pulled down a gate and got into the powder room, which is now coated in soft soap and toilet paper that’s been introduced to soft soap. In fact, while I’m writing this, I just heard the TV sound shut off —
The curse of Winky Dink and You lives on!
“awaiting moderation”?
So what, I gotta start saying “that John Boehner’s a smart political operator” and “Jeb Bush is compassionate as fuck, just the sort of man we need to win in 2016” just to get a comment posted?
Be glad he’s not twins. They connive. And conspire.
OT: David Stockman on the China Bubble
Is he a climber? When our now 18 year old was two+ years, we found him on top of the refridgerator eating the cookies we’d removed there from the kitchen counter because he’d caught him pushing a chair over to get at them.
I’ll pray for you.
Did he also break the blog for two days?
You should try duct-taping him to the wall.
And shock collars.
you should have some tasty progresso soup
…toilet paper that’s been introduced to soft soap…
Careful — that combination is probably in some fed agency manual as a precursor to something naughty.
Cool! You’ve got a curious child who’s not willing to accept the status quo, who isn’t afraid to accept new challenges, and desires to work with whatever’s at hand to accomplish goals.
Truly, you are blessed. If he simply stared at the nice TV shapes and colors and didn’t attempt to interact with intent, you’d have other issues.
Cheers! Glad pw’s back up.
A purple screen while playing media but with all the menus showing okay indicates a failure of the HDMI copy protection handshaking between your TV and the cable box. It might be the cable, it might be the cable box or it might be the TV.
If unplugging and replugging the cable makes no difference, then power cycle the cable box and television.
Or, if you can get to your TV settings menu, albeit in purple, try changing the resolution to 720p and then back to 1080p.
Or-maybe-turn off the 4:3 override settings in your cable box to see if that works.
Sounds like you would understand the reason why all of the Sharpies and scissors in our house are locked in the gun safe.
I swapped out the HDMI cable before I read your comment, Physics Geek, and that took care of it.
Don’t know why comments are getting caught in mod. Don’t know why I still have no email. Don’t know why the boy won’t go down for a nap.
All hell has broken loose this week. Climate disruption, is my guess.
Speaking from experience; silence is golden, unless you have a toddler, then it’s the cause for great suspicion :)
Perhaps Master Tanner switched the input source. I know mine has done that a few times via remote control…
Don’t know why the boy won’t go down for a nap.
That one seems relatively easy, since it’s surely due to his simply not having had enough tequila.
You didn’t thunk him on the noggin hard enuff. If it doesn’t raise an enormous phallic-like lump on his head, there won’t be any stars or birdies for him to count himself to sleep with. You do know that, don’t you?
That damn armadillo is bogarting the Cuervo.
My sister awakened one night to strange noises in the kitchen, where her intrepid toddler was on top of the stove, pushing buttons and trying to reach the cupboard above it.
They eventually put a lock on his bedroom door to keep him inside during the night.
On another occasion, she was sitting in the basement and noticed water dripping from the ceiling. There he was in the bathroom, tub full, and he was scooping it out with a Tupperware pitcher onto the floor as fast as he could.
Age seven he asked if he could have blow torch for his birthday and was appalled that they said no.
A few years ago he asked if he could cut a hole in his bedroom floor to install a seismometer.
A senior in high school, he and his friends go to Wal-Mart attach googly eyes to random products, then put them back on the shelf.
He’ll probably invent warp drive someday but he was a hellchild to raise.
My dad kept saying, “you can have nice things or you can have children but not both” and I always did felt guilty about that, because I was guilty about that. But what are you to do when the house is a whole world of exploration and discovery?
My first creative destruction was writing on the wall with crayons. I was given the wall. My second was climbing the curtains because that was simply ace. My third was drilling holes in the window sill because the drill bit was fascinating. My fourth was poking holes in the wooden arm of a chair because I realized I was capable of creating a cool design and my fifth was melting crayons over a lamp because it was pretty and fascinating and artistic. Putting creek fish in the bathtub with gravel for a natural look. Climbing the antenna pole to the top (It had a motor, best in the land, Dad was into electronics) Jumping off the roof with a makeshift parachute of sheets. Tents of sheets pegged into the ground with clothes pins. Bringing wild creatures into the house. I never did know why these things were so upsetting. I had no clue as to value. I had no idea where object came from, what it took to attain them. I thought they simply appeared on Earth as if by magic. Nor my own physical limitations. For it is a magical and wondrous world. Kids discover their own shadow.
Jeff? as a dad who was in your situation many years ago, may I suggest the above mentioned Cuervo? Not for the kids mind you…
Jeff wrote: All hell has broken loose this week.
Karma decided to launch a DOS Attack on your whole life, it seems.
Only bourbon can fix it.
so ” the terrible twos” is true
The two’s are indeed terrible especially since they carry over to the threes and sometimes the fours. My 2 year old grandson has discovered the word no. No to eating, no to sleeping, no to bathing, no to stop your freaking whining and stop tormenting your older brother. There is not much to do except fuck with their heads.
Greetings:
There are no bad children, only bad parents.
there are sometimes mischievous children, and sometimes preoccupied parents
I miss those days.
Granddaughter Rowan decided to start walking about 6 weeks ago …
and she won’t be 1 year old until 5/25.
and she doesn’t just walk, mind you, she is climbing. While her older bro, Zander (2.5 yr old) enjoys being in the same room as everyone [keeps up a running commentary on everything … we are doomed when he gets full command of English], Rowan likes to “explore” in stealth mode.
told her parents (#1 daughter & SIL) time for winglocks near the top of all outside doors.
Be glad he’s not twins. They connive. And conspire.
#2 daughter & her twins boys live with us. They’ll be 12 in September.
We are thinking about military school ….
My eldest scaled the side of his crib at 19 mos and with the stealth only toddlers can have, sneaked into the kitchen and managed to pry the top off the shoe shining supplies. He appeared at my bedside covered in red shoe polish and laughing.
I think I aged about 10 years in a split second.
All hell has broken loose this week. Climate disruption, is my guess.
I blame Bush. Or something. Anyway, glad the cable swap did the trick for you.
The comment moderation is a minor irritant. The fact that my (admittedly tiny and unimportant) blog is still down for the count is a somewhat larger irritant. But then I look at the asswipes wetting themselves over the firing of the NYT editor who have either ignored or lied about Benghazi and Fast and Furious and realize that I-and this country- have much, much bigger problems. In any event, it’s good to see you back up and running.
At 4 months I decided it was time to walk.
No, not unassisted, you dolt — hanging onto my parent’s fingers while they kept their spines parallel with the floor.
I was the oldest so they didn’t know better. Then when I finally began walking unassisted (before crawling), I didn’t have the spatial awareness to hold out my hands to catch myself when I fell. A permanent bruise on each temple showed how smart that was.
So I compromised and learned to crawl, which, that’s supposed to mess up your brain patterning, because the crawling motion helps with cross-hemisphere coordination.
To this day, I am baffled utterly by the Electric Slide. Just goes to show.
Leigh
I remember one night, after putting down daughters #1 (3.5 yr) #2 (18 mos) to sleep …hubby & I relaxing in the family room watching tv when suddenly #2 comes wandering into the room.
We look at each other for a moment and say, at almost same time “Didn’t we put her in her crib …?”
We put her back in, then stood in the shadows to watch her grab the side rail, heft her chest up, then flip like a gymnast, then lower herself to the floor.
SHE was why we put winglocks on the doors .. there wasn’t a locked doorknob she couldn’t figure out how to spring.
When I did the mom’s curse on her “may you have kids just like you”, that how she got identical twins with the bonus of them being boys.
Yeah, the youngest in our family growing up were twins – he being eight minutes older than she, and they connived and conspired whenever I was left to watch over them. I could have sworn they were telepathic, to boot.
She has twin girls of her own (teenagers now), and bewails them every time we speak. My standard response involves the phrase “remember when you…?”.
Hm. Twins aren’t necessarily required. A mere year, year and a half apart can have similar results. Me and my brother probably drove our mother up the wall when we were toddlers, I’m sure.
So should I feel amused or sorry for my brother who now has two daughters both in or entering their toddler stage?
My number three son woke up one night and decided to make himself some oatmeal in the microwave. He nearly burned down the house and started a pattern of kitchen remodeling that continues to this GD day. All because we can’t get a microwave exactly like the one he destroyed almost ten years ago.
They say you’re wife is never the same after kids. It’s really your kitchen… and bank account.
your
yours too
The childproofing was worthless at our house. #2 son would take the handle of a spoon and press down the hook inside the kitchen cabinets until it popped out of the clasp and then spring the door open. He would then proceed to unload the cupboards into the middle of the floor and then move on to other territory.
I was visiting my mother one day when my eldest was about 2. God knows why but she gave him a screwdriver to play with. We were chatting in the living room and she got up to use the restroom and discovered #1 had dismantled her back screen door and was working on her kitchen chairs.
We lived in an old Victorian home when #3 was a baby and he was an early walker. He would busy himself when I was in the kitchen by climbing the backstairs up to the landing and sliding down the front stairs. He then run as fast as he could back to the kitchen, slide across the floor to the backstairs and repeat.