toddlers

...are not worth the trouble.

Cavorting with my toddler niece and nephew, even for a couple of hours, has once again left me reeling and considering a vow of celibacy. (Although, admittedly, the fault lies with the kids and not the guy.)

At least I don't have to talk to them. I've heard them talk before and it reminds me horribly of goo. I don't know why, but it DOES and that's the whole point.

And that, in a way, has alienated me from the rest of my maternal family since they all think that toddlers are perfectly adorable and can do no wrong. Thus they happily offer up their backs for donkey rides and their butts for slapping. It sounds vaguely masochistic, and I suppose that's why I chose not to partake in the strange ritual of getting bullied voluntarily. If any toddler came up and treated me like a jungle gym and generally pissed me off, I'd hurl him out the window so hard he wouldn't know what hit him.

You might find me harsh, but until (and if ever) I get kids of my own, I'm sticking to the firm belief that one should not be taken in by the charms of toddlers, which they will, oh, turn on you and make you weak at the knees, upon which they will seize their chance and climb onto you and make you play horsie with them.

I very nearly got taken in by their charms yesterday. The threeyearold Niece and fouryearold Nephew were both sick, and I was deliriously hoping for some peace and quiet and less inane games like CRAYOLA UNLIMITED WOOHOO!!!! However since toddlers were apparently put on this earth to make us pay for our sins or whatnot, they were anything but quiet. They were annoying and whiny. They ran off to climb high up onto a table, onto to come running back sobbing when they discovered that gravity bends for no man and they fell hard onto the concrete floor.

Anyway even playing Blackjack was not safe. We were there gambling and some of us were swearing rather colourfully, but still the Niece and Nephew wandered up and decided that it would be fun to paw at our cards and our heaps of money. If it were up to me I would have slapped their hands and then put them safely in a corner where they could do no harm to our petty gambling, and also learn good moral values instead of hokkien swear words.

But obviously I have no say in the disciplining of the Niece and Nephew, and they were allowed to roam free, turning over cards and upending piles of coins.

Anyway as I was preparing to go home to my safe and toddler-free haven, the Niece ambled out the door behind us and waved bye to us. All the adults immediately melted at her feet; you'd think she'd single-handedly saved a third world country from starvation or something. I thought it was kinda cute, and was almost going to revamp my entire image of her.

--

I woke up this morning, drowning in mucus and with a freshly-sandpapered throat, germs courtesy of the Nephew and Niece. It's kind of lucky they live relatively far from here. Otherwise, I'd have dragged my incapitated self over to their house and clawed their throats out.

Toddlers are evil in disguise. Therefore, we should all do what the author of Gulliver's Travels proposed, and eat them.

How do I eat thee? Let me count the ways.
There's tossed in yusheng, sliced up into tiny raw bits.
I could always roll them up in prawn rolls and pop them in whole.

But I digress. Sigh. I can only hope that I wasn't quite as terrifying as them when I was a toddler.