More clearer communicatizing

Dear Mr. Baby:

I spend a lot of my day asking questions, some of them rhetorical, some of them not. Generally this is a huge waste of my time, because whatever you say back has little relation to anything on the planet:

A: Can you please set the salt shaker down?
B: Marlow likes Bus Tayo has some bunny and a grusza! He doesn't like it and it's really broken.

It occurs to me that maybe it would be helpful to you to know why I am asking, to better facilitate you providing a helpful response. After all, you're a smart kid. So here are some addenda to things you hear, frequently - oh so frequently - around the house:

Is there any way, any way at all, you can put your thumb into the thumb hole?
Because if it's just not possible, if it's like time travel, we can just give up on it. It's forty-five minutes of my life, every day, that I'll never get back.

Is everyone in this house actually trying to push me over the edge?
I like to see things like mandatory institutionalization coming, plus why make another fucking lunch if this is the case?

How many times have I told you blah blah blah?
Just being sarcastic. I'm actually more interested in a rough estimate of the number of times you think I might have to say blah blah blah again before you're like, oh! I'm literally eating away at someone's soul by blah blah blahing. Maybe I should fucking stop, like someone asked me to 465,214 times before.

Out of curiosity, why do you think I put that there?
Seriously. Out of curiosity, why do you think I put that there? Wouldn't I just go ahead and stuff a cereal box into the toilet if that was where I wanted it?

Why are you kicking the baby?
He's the second child. No one is paying any attention to him (he's inside the diaper pail...ehhh, it's almost bathtime anyway). The baby is cute. It seems sort of psychotic to walk across the room and just start kicking a baby. Why are you kicking a baby?

What did I say about eating your crayons? 
I'm just curious if you can field this one.

Can you take it down a notch?
It seems like it's physically possible. It seems like it might actually be easier than yelling everything at that particular frequency.

Do you think you need seven spoons for that? Really? 
Because it sort of seems like you don't need any spoons for eating crackers at all.

Don't you want to use at least one spoon for that?
I mean, most people use spoons for soup. But that's just because it's a liquid.

Is your sippy cup, in fact, possessed by the soul of a lemming?
Because I'd hate to be blaming you for what is single-handedly the most unnecessary and annoying aspect of my day.

Do you remember why you went in time out?
This, I just like to ask this for the humourous responses that I get. I know you have no fucking clue.

A heartfelt apology (list)

Dear Mr. Baby:

I'm sorry this post is so long in coming. I was just a little bit busy twice a day piecing the pile of rubble that used to be our house and preparing delicious, colorful plates of food for you and your brother to smash into the one place that cannot be cleaned up by the curiously long tongue of the dog: his own head. (It's fine. We eat chicken nuggets now and we aren't looking back, and if you end up with some kind of vitamin deficiency in the future, I've taken a few pictures of your reaction to any food that is not fried-bread brown and dipped in ketchup so that there won't be any confusion about why I was a Bad Mother). Lately you seem to have a lot of complaints. I can't actually understand what they are, because despite your small-talking prowess when, say, I just want to read to completion (because the year is important) the expiry date on something I found in the fridge, you seem to retain only the ability to produce high-decibel vowelage when you are upset. Still, I gather that I owe you some kind of apology for things that happened today. So let me just say, Mr. Baby, that I am really, truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, so incredibly fucking sorry for the following things:

I'm sorry I offered you a banana for breakfast.
I'm sorry I interpreted NOT A BANANA, NO, NOT A BANANA! to mean you did not want a banana.
I'm sorry that when I asked you what you wanted instead of a banana and you said, pear, I assumed you wanted a pear.
I'm sorry I didn't let you finish the pear after you threw it on the floor.
I'm sorry I was singing.
I'm sorry that I said the word ''cow.''
I'm sorry the water in the tap didn't heat up fast enough and so was too cold.
I'm sorry that thirty seconds later, the water in the tap heated up one degree and so was too hot.
I'm sorry your feet cannot be crammed into your old rain boots, identical in every way to your current rain boots except for size.
I'm sorry I detained you when you tried to fight an actual bull.
I'm sorry I held your hand so that the donkey didn't bite it off while you fed him a carrot.
I'm sorry I held your hand when you were yelling, ''Hold the hand! Hold the hand!''
I'm sorry I let go of your hand after you yelled at me for holding your hand.
I'm sorry I held your hand incorrectly.
I'm sorry that cattails break up and fly away into the wind when you hit them on stuff.
I'm sorry that Fred was running.
I'm sorry that Fred chases geese.
I'm sorry that Fred stopped chasing geese.
I'm sorry I put you in the stroller when you said ''STROLLER! STROLLER!''
I'm sorry I ran you over ten seconds later when you jumped out.
I'm sorry I don't have three hands.
I'm sorry that your feet were wet after you poured water into your boots using an empty plastic bottle.
I'm sorry that I didn't let you drink water that had cow shit in it.
I'm sorry I moved you before you sat in dog shit.
I'm sorry that when you asked me what this symbol: Q is, I responded, ''Q.''
I'm sorry that it is physically impossible for me to hold you, the baby, and a pot of boiling water at the same time.
I'm sorry that I asked you not to stick your head in the oven.
I'm sorry that I asked you not to stick your head in the toilet.
I'm sorry that I changed that enormous shit in your diaper that you didn't tell me about until you it had burned through all the skin on your ass.
I'm sorry ketchup is not food.
I'm sorry that a Tonka bulldozer the size of a toaster will not balance on top of the Leggo firetruck on top of a book on the edge of the table.
I'm sorry for asking you not to throw all of the paper covers of hardback books, which you spent so much time removing, in the trash.
I'm sorry I asked for some Leggo bread to go with my Leggo cream cheese at your Leggo tea party.
I'm sorry that you don't like socks.
I'm sorry that your feet got cold when I took your socks off.
I'm sorry you don't like socks (again).
I'm sorry - and this comes up a lot - that you forget the number five while you are counting.
I'm sorry your thumb got stuck for the fiftieth time in a Leggo hole.
I'm sorry I asked you if you wanted to watch My Little Pony again.
I'm sorry I put on Paddington Bear instead of My Little Pony.
I'm sorry I had to turn My Little Pony off to put on Dora the Explorer.
I'm sorry Dora the Explorer asked you a question you didn't like.
I'm sorry that ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' ends at the end, and I'm also really sorry that, in spite of reading it 178 times, I still need to look at the words to remember what to say.

Please let me know if there's anything you feel that I left out. We aim to please, and when we can't do that, we apologize.