8 Weird Things My Toddler Finds Hilarious…

Toddlers are weird. My toddler is particularly weird. The things that amuse other toddlers – pulling silly faces, singing silly songs – elicit nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a look of “Act your age, mother”. Instead, there are some really weird things that she finds hilarious. Here’s our list of eight things guaranteed to make SB giggle, or otherwise amuse her, for hours on end.

1. Senseless parental violence. Everyone loves a bit of slapstick comedy, and SB is no different. All we have to do is pretend to hit (or actuallyhit) ourselves, or each other, and she will howl with laughter. And there was me, thinking we’d raise a compassionate, sympathetic, pacifist daughter. Nope – senseless violence is just a bit of entertainment to her.
2. Senseless (plastic) animal violence. I’ll make it perfectly clear right now that SB loves real animals. She is very gentle and caring, and loves our hamsters and my parents’ dog Daisy. Plastic animals, however, are fair game. Yesterday, I amused her for hours by whacking her plastic rocking horse over the head with a pillow. She screamed with laughter, chanting “Bad horse”. Should I be on the lookout for further psychopathic tendencies?
3. Sniffing shoes. What is it with toddlers and being gross? One of SB’s most amusing pastimes is sniffing shoes – hers, mine, Daf’s, anyone’s – and wrinkling her nose, saying “Poo” and shaking her head. Double ‘funny points’ if she can get me or Daf to do it too.
4. Being smothered by clothes. The only way of keeping her happy while getting her dressed, now that she’s found her independence and does anything to stay as naked as humanly possible, is to throw her pyjamas/any other clothes I can find over her face. For some reason, she finds this hilarious.
5. Fist bumps. I make no apology for this one. Daf and I have taught SB to ‘fist bump’, followed by either a Big Hero 6-style “Ba la la la”, or a shout of BOOM! This is one of SB’s favourite things, with one unfortunate side effect – we now find ourselves having to fist-bump her every twenty seconds.
6. Re-enacting Jurassic Park. Silly faces might get an unimpressed reaction, but acting like a t-rex and chasing her around the room, screaming and waving your tiny arms around? The funniest thing ever, apparently.
7. Having her teeth brushed. Apparently, most toddlers hate having their teeth brushed. It’s the one area of getting ready that SB doesn’t turn into a total battle – she’ll gladly have her teeth brushed, as long as we use her sharky brush and let her have a go afterwards. For some reason, she always laughs when having her teeth brushed – I’m not complaining, I just don’t quite get it.
8. Chores. As one half of the most undomesticated couple EVER, imagine my joy yesterday when not only did SB help me sort out the clean laundry, but she giggled every time I passed her a sock to fold and put in the pile (no, I don’t normally fold socks, but it amused her). Fingers crossed she finds washing up hilarious too. I’m not holding my breath.

What strange things are absolutely hilarious to your toddler? Do they giggle for hours at something for no apparent reason? Leave a comment below – I’d love to hear your little one’s weird amusements!