Strangers and Wooden Spoons

Toddler Rule # 1: All people exist to play with me, stranger or not.

Today I had to take M to the walk in clinic for a mild rash. One of those better safe than sorry kind of things. We had a pretty short wait by walk in standards and I had packed some toys to keep him occupied while we were there. The Bert and Ernie dolls were brought out and he was happily playing at the kids table. Until he noticed the other people in the waiting room. He proceeded to do a run around the waiting room scoping out the other people for potential play mates. M has no internal Stranger Danger alarm. After a couple of turns around the room he chose his victim and started to be his oh so cute self and say Hi numerous times. She responded not realizing just what she had started. He took this to mean that she was a willing participant and he bestowed on her the greatest gift he could. He gave her the Bert and Ernie dolls. And waited. And waited. This poor woman had no idea what to do so she gave them to me. M took great offense to this, stomped his feet, grabbed the dolls and gave them back to her. She sat them on her knee which satisfied him and he ran off again to tour the room and say hello to anyone who would respond. The second he left she gave them to me and I followed him. There's nothing I can say after that other than thank you. Thank you stranger for humoring my toddler and pretending you really wanted to play with Bert and Ernie while you are no doubt not feeling well or you wouldn't be sitting in the clinic.

Toddler Rule #2: Kitchen utensils belong everywhere but in the kitchen

Once we were home he had his nap and came out to play for the afternoon. He was playing blocks, throwing them over the stairs and putting them together on the coffee table. He got bored with that pretty quickly and started delving into the kitchen drawers. He found the wooden spoon that I had left there just for him to grab. After banging the spoon on every surface in the house he started following me around, waving the spoon and hollering loudly. I stopped and looked at him, he grinned and promptly stuck the spoon up my shirt. Every time I tried to take it out he yelled and put it back up my shirt. I walked around for half an hour with a long wooden spoon up my shirt. This is what one does to avoid a meltdown over a wooden spoon.

The day is not done yet and already M has established two toddler laws. We'll see what the rest of the day/night brings.