The next time your toddler’s behavior makes you want to give up on family dinners and just serve cereal all day, consider that the problem isn’t their lack of manners. It’s that they still only know the rules of toddler etiquette.

1. Arrive underdressed. – Let everyone know you aren’t an ordinary diner. Arrive at the table missing at least one piece of clothing such as a sock, shoe, shirt or, ideally, pants. If it is a formal meal, wear extra stickers.
2. Bring a guest. – A toy should be with you at the table. If necessary, hold the preferred toy hostage until your request for a plus-1 is granted. Your toy will understand.
3. Be patient. – Wait until seating assignments are settled before selecting another seat to take or lap to sit in.
4. Sit up straight. – You will know you are sitting up high enough when you are standing in your chair.
5. Always be the first to order. – Ordering food should begin long before dinnertime and continue until you are asleep in bed.

Read rules 6-25 on the Scary Mommy website where my post was originally featured by clicking here.

1. Check to see if it’s time to wake up. If not, wake up anyway and immediately tell parents.
2. Stain a shirt or couch cushion.
3. Clean out a toy box and leave it empty.
4. Hide a TV remote control.
5. Find a corner to substitute as a bathroom.
6. Sneak cereal out of the pantry and pour it into a shoe in case of a snack prohibition.
7. Change settings on a phone.
8. Get into a losing argument.
9. Test weight limit of refrigerator shelves by climbing up and down them. Grab juice box if available. Push milk carton to floor if necessary.
10. Take parent for a long walk/run when they are least expecting it.
11. Beg for snacks in 15-minute intervals, even if a snack is in hand.
12. Continue to test theory that everything is attainable if a meltdown is long enough.
13. Wipe nose on a stranger.
14. Check the length of a roll of toilet paper.
15. Make sure all doors are open at all times, including the front door but especially the bathroom doors.
16. Create a wall mural with permanent markers or food.
17. Empty a bathtub of water on the floor like the tub is a sinking ship and/or the bathroom floor is on fire.
18. Throw a yogurt cup, toothbrush and tantrum.
19. Carefully select the sharpest toys and place them where a burglar or anybody walking through the house after 7pm would least expect to step on them.
20. Fight sleep like it’s trying to steal your family.

1. There’s no such thing as a “quick trip” to the grocery store.
2. A grocery cart with a racecar frame is the fastest cart to give your kids the flu.
3. The free cookie in the bakery is a gateway drug that makes your kids think everything in the store is delicious and free.
4. Toddlers can miss their mouth with a chicken nugget four out of five times, but they can throw a sock in the lobster tank from 15 feet away on their first try.
5. Every aisle is the candy aisle to a toddler.
6. Frozen foods are like kids in Facebook photos: they look better than they really are.
7. Nobody under 10 years old can keep a promise to not run a grocery cart over your heel.
8. Strangers who stop to say your kids are cute didn’t see them knock over the store display.
9. Your first trip of the day to a grocery store is just a practice run for the return trip you’ll need to make later in the day.
10. Toddlers can figure out how to remove themselves from a shopping cart faster than Harry Houdini.
11. More than ninety percent of veggies bought with good intentions are scraped into sinks, trashcans and dogs’ mouths.
12. A free sample is still big enough to make you have to change your kids’ clothes when they inevitably spill it.
13. The freezer section isn’t as cold as the look your toddler will give you for not buying them ice cream.
14. Similar to how you want to check fruit for bruises, toddlers want to check the aerodynamics of glass jars.
15. Kids can’t taste the difference, but they can recognize the box of a generic brand and know how long a tantrum must last before you switch to the brand with popular cartoon characters.
16. If you are in a hurry, a toddler will make you take them to the bathroom where they will decide that they don’t really have to go because the thought of hearing a public toilet flush is terrorizing.
17. The express checkout is not a reward for your kids opening 10 items or less that you hadn’t bought yet.
18. You can buy a lottery ticket, but the bigger gamble is thinking the extra minute it takes to buy the ticket isn’t enough time for your kids to knock down another store display.
19. Toddlers only want to hold their parent’s hands in a grocery store parking lot with both of their feet kicking in the air.
20. Out of the $200 worth of groceries you ultimately get, milk was the only item you intended to buy.

The ‘A’ position: When a toddler climbs into bed with their parents and wedges them apart at their hips.

The ‘B’ position: When a parent puts two pillows between themself and two kids, but both kids still manage to curve around their respective pillows far enough for their itchy hair and cold toes to bother the parent all night.

The ‘C’ position: When a parent curves their body around a pool of urine in the middle of the bed.

The ‘D’ position: When one parent has been pushed to the very edge of the bed while the other parent’s butt has already been knocked to the floor and only their outstretched fingers and toes remain atop the bed near their partner.

The ‘E’ position: When two parents each lay an arm across the top of the bed so their toddler can rest their head on both parents’ arms at the same time.

The ‘F’ position: When a parent lies in bed and two toddlers position themselves perpendicular to the parent, one lying on the parent’s face and the other on the parent’s stomach.

The ‘G’ position: When a parent curls into a fetal position because they can’t get five consecutive minutes of sleep.

The ‘H’ position: When a toddler rests their head on one parent’s belly and their feet on the other parent’s belly. (Typically, the toddler changes their direction many times throughout a night.)

The ‘I’ position: When a parent lies still with their hands at their sides in fear of waking their toddler – who is sleeping directly atop the parent.

The ‘J’ position: When a parent lies still with their hands at their sides in fear of waking their toddler – who is curled up on their parent’s face.

The ‘K’ position: When two parents form a right angle against the headboard because they have given up trying to stop kids from crawling into the middle of their bed at night.

The ‘L’ position: When a parent lies in bed with one outstretched arm trapped under their toddler’s head. (Typically, the parent’s arm is the only part of the parent to fall asleep due to the toddler’s snoring, coughing and pleas for the parent to get up.)

The ‘M’ position: When two toddlers share a pillow with the parent closest to them, but still find reason to kick each other under the covers all night.

The ‘N’ position: When a toddler lies diagonally in bed between parents to take up the most amount of space possible.

The ‘O’ position: When a parent withdraws into a cannonball position to defend themself against a toddler who won’t stop jumping on their head.

The ‘P’ position: Not a physical position as much as it is a state of mind. Throughout a night, a parent must remain in an alert “P” position to quickly dodge or cleanup their kid’s pee.

The ‘Q’ position: When a parent tries to cover their whole body with the sheets but their toddler claims such a disproportional amount of sheets that the parent’s leg sticks out at the bottom.

The ‘R’ position: When one parent is hiding between the headboard and the mattress while the other parent is in the cannonball position (also known as Position O) getting kicked in the kidneys by a toddler having a night terror.

The ‘S’ position: The shape of a parent’s spine after countless nights contorting their body around a toddler.

The ‘T’ position: When a parent stretches their arms out to the sides to allow up to four children (or one child and up to three stuffed animals) to rest their head on each arm.

The ‘U’ position: When two parents and a toddler are all sleeping on the edges of the bed, but everybody is too tired to care about the risks of falling out of bed anymore.

The ‘V’ position: When two parents have to share a pillow because their toddler has taken the other pillows (and the sheets) and is hiding them somewhere in the house.

The ‘W’ position: When four children conspire to take up every inch of space in their parents’ bed, forcing the parents to spend the night in separate toddler size beds and reflect on whether they were as prepared as they thought they were to have the fourth baby. (This position is also known as the coup d’état.)

The ‘X’ position: When a toddler lies across their parent’s belly to leverage their weight and keep the parent pinned down.

The ‘Y’ position: When a parent stretches both arms high above their head and yawns, knowing that they won’t be getting any real rest.

The ‘Z’ position: Ironically named because no parent will ever get zzzzz’s again if their toddler becomes a fully-grown adult who still sleeps diagonally because their parents never made them learn how to sleep in their own bed.

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