Cute but Destructive

There are a lot of ways to describe toddlers. Funny, adorable, surprising, sneaky, loud, smelly, messy, sticky… But as with so much of life, one word isn’t enough. Toddlers, like the rest of us, are multifaceted and no one word is quite adequate to capture their essence.

But I think three words will: Cute but destructive. In my experience, that’s an apt way to describe the competing opposites that truly define the toddler life.

For instance, when the 18-month-old very sweetly offers to share her peanut butter sandwich by smearing it on my pantleg, all I can think is, this is cute but destructive.

When the 18-month-old wakes up at 3 a.m. and sings, “Baby Beluga” or the Doxology into the baby monitor, it’s cute — but completely destructive to a good night’s sleep. Same thing on Saturday morning at sunup, when the 4-year-old comes and wakes me up loudly whispering, “Dad I wanted to wake you up because you were sleeping.”

He earnestly believes he’s doing me a favor here and that’s pretty cute, but destructive.

As you may have noticed, most of the examples of their cute but destructive nature hinges on their good intentions. The problem is they just can’t carry out their intentions or can only do so in a way that won’t produce the result they intended.  

When the (then) 3-year-old helped me harvest tomatoes from the garden by picking all the unripe green tomatoes he definitely thought he was being helpful. When he proudly held up his plastic sand pail with 73 little green tomatoes in it he definitely thought I would be thrilled by his efforts. And no doubt about it, it was cute as can be. But boy was it destructive.

When the (then) 3-year-old eagerly lugged the gallon of milk to the table to pour his baby brother a cup of milk and proceeded to perform the perfect demonstration of how 128 ounces of milk doesn’t fit inside a 6-ounce sippy cup (especially since the lid was still on) you can’t get much more cute but destructive.

When the 18-month-old attempts to put her own diaper on and proudly walks around with it halfway off, it’s a walking illustration of the cute but (potentially) destructive principle.

In the end though, I’ll take the cute where I can get it. Goodness knows the destructive is always there and only becomes more apparent as the kids get older.

So, even if it comes with a big old serving of destructive on the side, I’ll be on the lookout for the cute. And, when it comes to instances of good intentions and showing care for others, I hope I can even inspire some of it.