It must be hard to be a toddler. Here you are, only a few years into this wild ride called life, and suddenly you’ve got to figure out how basically EVERYTHING works! It can be a lot for a tiny human, so they can be forgiven for misunderstanding a thing or two. But we can also be forgiven for laughing, because some of the stuff they believe is seriously funny.
1. “My 3-year-old was playing on a chair in his room and found a small feather poking out of the cushion, as sometimes happens. I asked him about it, and he explained that ‘feathers grow in pillows.’ I asked, ‘But what about birds?’ Then he elaborated, ‘Feathers grow in pillows so the birds can wear them.'”
—Brendan R.D., Quora
2. “I used to keep and breed tropical fish, and whenever my granddaughter visited, she’d always ask to see the fish. She wanted to help with the feeding but was a bit heavy-handed with the fish food, so I told her, ‘How about I feed them, and you give them a drink?’ I gave her a jug of water and a shot glass so she went around every tank and poured a shot glass full.”
3. “When my daughter was 3, she thought all bras were filled with air, and every woman decided how much air she wanted in her bra. Therefore, her made-up name for all bras was ‘Airbra.'”
“‘Mom, here’s your Airbra to put on.’
‘Is it time for you to put on your Airbra, mommy?’
‘I can’t wait until I get to have an Airbra!’
One day, we were all getting ready to go out to a restaurant when I looked at her and saw she had one of my bras on the OUTSIDE of her clothes and expected us to all go out to eat that way!
She then yelled, ‘MOM, I NEED SOME AIR FOR MY AIRBRA!’
Last year, we were clothes shopping, and I asked her if she needed any Airbras (smiling, of course). She looked at me like I was nuts.”
—Rebecca B., Quora
4. “We’ve been ordering a lot from Amazon — so much so that my 2-and-a-half-year-old believes that he came to us from Amazon, too. We’ve now started talking to him about bringing him a sibling, and he’s convinced that by saying that, we mean we are going to ‘order it from Amazon.’ So, I guess he believes Amazon is the modern-day stork?”
5. “My husband and I would hang out with our friends and their toddler quite often, so their son was pretty comfortable around us. But it was almost always the four of us adults together. One time, I went to visit the mom/wife of this couple by myself. She and I were chatting when the 3-year-old asked me, ‘Where’s your dad?’ I chuckled a little and thought in confusion, ‘My dad? He doesn’t know my dad…???’ The boy repeated, ‘Where’s your dad?’ and I then realized that he was asking about my absent husband! It dawned on me that the only word he knew for an adult male was ‘dad.’ LOL.”
—Dale C., Quora
6. “My toddler believed that instead of getting bigger herself, I was getting smaller. She told me that when I got little, I could have her favorite shirt. And she told my future husband that when I got little, she would marry him.”
7. “My 2-year-old believes she has an imaginary friend named Trump. As it turns out, he’s a pretty ornery fellow. Last week, she says, he talked her into drawing all over herself with a marker. And, apparently, the other day Trump tried to snatch her baby brother, so she had to chase him around the house with her sword.”
“It’s funny. We laugh it off. But then, we went to a dinner party with my husband’s coworkers. My daughter, being the ham that she is, was thrilled to be the center of attention of all the adults. Seriously, they formed a little circle around her as she danced around and entertained them.
Then suddenly she shouted, ‘Everybody hide! TRUMP is coming!’
I held my breath until the entire room burst into laughter. (Thank God.)”
—Sheree M., Quora
8. “When my son was around 2, he believed, for some reason, that I was Batman. I have no idea where it came from. One day, he just got out of bed and started pointing to pictures of Batman and loudly proclaiming them to be ‘Daddy.’ It went on for about three months until it finally clicked why he thought I was Batman. At the time, he couldn’t really say ‘Batman’; instead, he would say ‘Bat’ with an inaudible sound at the end. His way of saying Batman coincided with everyone calling me ‘Matt,’ and so, in his head, he assumed that I was Batman. Of course, I was rather flattered and often would say to him, ‘I’m not saying I’m Batman, but have you ever seen Batman and me in the same room?’ He would always laugh and loved to tell anyone he met that his dad was Batman.”
9. “My daughter asked my wife, ‘Mom, Yusra (her cousin) told me that you will die when I grow up. Is that true?’ ‘Baby,’ my wife replied, ‘everyone has to die someday.’ My daughter shook her head and said, ‘No. You are not going to die. You and I will both live forever. Only dad has to die.'”
“My wife was shocked and laughed for ages.”
—Sheheryar X.B., Quora
10. “My toddler believes that even if we make eye contact while playing hide-and-seek, I can’t see him as long as he stays quiet. I don’t mean a quick glance in his direction — I mean maintaining solid eye contact for five seconds or more. It’s really funny.”
11. “My son believes that everything is alive. I overheard him apologizing to the bedroom door after I slammed it (I wasn’t in a bad mood; it was due to the wind). He was like, ‘Dear door, please don’t cry. Daddy didn’t hurt you on purpose.‘”
“He also insisted on covering his quilt with a smaller blanket because ‘the quilt might be cold.’ I immediately asked him, ‘Seriously? What if the small blanket feels cold?’ I kicked myself the minute I said that. After covering him with a seventh blanket, I finally managed to convince him that this one didn’t get cold.”
—David F., Quora
12. “My 3-year-old son has dinosaur-themed sheets and pillows on his bed because, well, he loves dinosaurs. A few weeks ago, he woke up crying that his ears hurt. He had a cold and, as it turned out, a bad ear infection. I took him to the pediatrician, who asked him, ‘Well, buddy, what do you think happened?’ My son very somberly said, ‘Well, two of the dinosaurs on my pillow had a fight, and one of them decided to run off the pillow and hide in my ear. Unfortunately, it was the Stegosaurus, so his big spikes are poking me inside.'”
13. “My daughter thinks I am responsible for putting dreams in her brain before she falls asleep. It’s a part of our nighttime routine. I read a book, tuck her in with hugs and kisses, then put my hand on the top of her head, murmur some nonsensical chant, ask her what she wants to dream about, chant a little more, and then tell her I put the dreams in there. Sometimes, I tell her I put in dreams about ‘ice cream, puppies, and spiders.’ Then she’ll say, ‘No! Not spiders! Take that one out!’ So I put my hand back on her head and tell her I took it out.”
“Sometimes, if she’s having trouble sleeping, she’ll come into my room and request better dreams because the ones I gave her aren’t working. It’s cute when she does it before 10 p.m. but annoying when she does it after that.
Sometimes, I tell her it’s a ‘surprise dream.’ In the morning, she tells me what she dreamed about, and I say, ‘Yep, that’s the one I put in there.'”
—Mathew B., Quora
14. “To get my daughter to use the toilet, I told her the toilet was an alien from a planet who ate poopoo and drank peepee. She loved to eat and drink it, and was friendly and harmless. My daughter asked, ‘Then why can’t I talk to her, daddy?’ I replied, ‘Because she’s an alien and doesn’t speak English.'”
15. “A couple of days ago, I was alone at home with my 5-year-old. At some point, I heard him downstairs saying, ‘I love you.’ I called down to him: ‘Hey, who are you talking to?’ He responded: ‘Siri. She just updated my iPad and everything looks new!'”
—Elena L., Quora
16. “My 3-year-old truly believes that an ice pack can make anything better. A few nights ago, he had a nightmare and woke up crying. I went to comfort him, but he was horribly upset and wouldn’t stop screaming. Then, it occurred to me that I might offer him an ice pack. He immediately agreed that it would make him feel better and stopped crying as soon as I left to get him the ice pack. By the time I returned, he was already sound asleep.”
17. “My mother tongue is Telugu, and my husband’s is Hindi. At home, we mainly speak Hindi as I can speak it, too, but I also speak Telugu to my 4-year-old daughter because I want her to learn it. One day, my husband was jokingly imitating me with his very limited Telugu vocabulary. My daughter asked him, ‘Why are you talking in Telugu? Stop talking in Telugu!’ My husband replied, ‘Why not? Why can’t I speak Telugu?’ My daughter retorted, ‘You can’t because girls speak Telugu and boys speak Hindi, so stop talking.’ She firmly believes girls speak Telugu and boys speak Hindi and looks confused when we tell her otherwise.”
—Aswini, Quora
18. “When my son’s electronic toys stopped working, I explained they needed batteries. It seemed like he understood what that meant because he would hand me the toy and wait for me to install fresh batteries. If I did not have batteries, he would accept that and play with something else. One morning he was using crayons to draw. When he took the very, very light blue crayon out of the box and tried to draw with it, the color barely registered on the paper. He looked at me and said: ‘Needs batteries.'”
19. “My little guy firmly believes that if he lifts something ‘high’ above his head, we cannot reach it. I wanted to show this to someone, so when I found him playing with a toy, I pretended that I wanted to take it. I chased him all over the place, and he screamed, laughed, and ran away from me. Each time I got him cornered, though, he would lift his hands above his head and look at me victoriously. Because obviously, if he lifts the toy THAT HIGH, no one could possibly reach it.”
“He is so darn adorable in this belief that we don’t have the heart to take anything from him when he does this.
How could we?
How could anyone?
It’s simply too high.”
—Iva Izabela M., Quora
20. “The toddler was me, and it was 1959. My mother gave me a short haircut — a really short one for a little girl — and cut out the ears. For days, I walked around with my hands covering my ears until she asked why I was doing that. I said, ‘Only boys have ears.’ I had never seen girls’ ears. Girls and women all had long hair, and I only saw ears on boys and men. My toddler mind thought I was a freak.”
21. “Back in the ’90s, I phoned my sister. As often happened, my 2-year-old niece answered the phone (a standard landline, voice only). She immediately started telling me that she’d just got new, pretty shoes. Then she went silent, and I heard my sister laughing as she took the phone. ‘She was showing you her shoes!’ she giggled, ‘She was pointing the receiver at them!'”
—Nigel P., Quora
Do you have a funny story about something wild your toddler believes (or believed)? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form. Your response could be featured in a future BuzzFeed post!
