Toddlers For Scrapbooking Quotes

I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn't beautiful in the first place. We aren't writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can't begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it's only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there's no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.

On and on it goes, all the way to the lightless borderlands of time and space, which we come to discover in some future age are but the beginnings or endings of a single word spoken from the mouth of God. Some nights, while I traipse down the hill, I imagine that word isn't a word at all, but a burst of laughter. ~ Andrew Peterson

Shortly after I returned home from the Ukraine, I became severely ill with what doctors believed was a parasite. I couldn't hold my food down and lost a lot of weight. Different doctors kept prescribing me antibiotics, but none of them seemed to help. For a couple of months, I was poked and tested in a variety of ways, only to have more questions surface than answers. Then I was sent to an ear, nose, and throat doctor for an evaluation. I was sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of toddlers, when my name was called. By the time I got into the examination room I knew I'd had enough.
"Hey, I'm outta here," I told the doctor. "I'll take my chance with the resurrection."
Well, a couple of weeks later, my insurance agent called me. He was one of my lifelong friends and sounded concerned.
"Hey, Jase," he said. "Your insurance company wants you to see a psychiatrist."
Apparently, the ear, nose, and throat doctor recommended I undergo a full psychiatric evaluation based on my refusal to be examined, along with my speech on the resurrection! Apparently, he thought I was crazy. I convinced my buddy that I didn't need a psychiatrist and eventually got over my illness. I would later read a passage of scripture in the Bible that caused me to smile in reflection on the entire ordeal. Second Corinthians 5:13 says: "If we are out of our mind, as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ~ Jase Robertson

More than nine million people a year come to the Smokies, many of them to picnic. So bears have learned to associate people with food. Indeed, to them people are overweight creatures in baseball caps who spread lots and lots of food out on picnic tables and then shriek a little and waddle off to get their video cameras when old Mr. Bear comes along and climbs onto the table and starts devouring their potato salad and chocolate cake. Since the bear doesn't mind being filmed and indeed seems indifferent to his audience, pretty generally some fool will come up to it and try to stroke it or feed it a cupcake or something. There is one recorded instance of a woman smearing honey on her toddler's fingers so that the bear would lick it off for the video camera. Failing to understand this, the bear ate the baby's hand. ~ Bill Bryson

Making children cry for a photographer can be considered mean. But I would say that making children laugh and show off their jeans for an apparel ad is just as exploitative and less natural. Toddlers' natural state, like, 30 percent of the time, is crying, and it doesn't indicate pain or suffering. ~ Jill Greenberg

But can you imagine if the very first time that you fell after pulling yourself up on that coffee table, a voice came thundering down at you, berating you for falling? "I knew you couldn't do it! You fell, you idiot! I can't believe you fell. Everyone else is walking, but not you. You are a pathetic little crawler and you always will be!" No, quite the opposite! Toddlers are met with lavish praise at each minor progression, even steps in the general direction of progress. When the little one pulls herself up, she gets applause. Mom grabs the video camera and calls the grandparents. Can you imagine how different - and by different, I mean better - this journey would be if with every advancement you made, every small, wobbly step you took in the direction toward Hunger Directed Eating (however imperfect it was), you lavished praise, delighted wonderment, and encouragement upon yourself? ~ Josie Spinardi

Parents love bathtime because it means that bedtime is near. To prepare your darling for her bath, put on your full-length poncho, because toddlers don't bathe, they splash, motherfucker. When toddlers bathe, they act like they're a junior member of the summer Olympics diving team. Get ready. By the time you're done, your bathroom floor will have a few inches of standing water. The good news is that wiping up all that water counts as mopping the floor. ~ Bunmi Laditan

The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven).

The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading. ~ Linda Åkeson McGurk

1. Turn ordinarily meals into family time. Cultivate a fun and relaxed atmosphere and impose a "No TV" rule. 2. Feed your toddler the same type of food you feed to the rest of your family. 3. Do not force your toddler to eat. Issuing threats and punishments will only make him dislike and dread mealtimes. 4. Respect your toddler's food preference on what he likes and what he dislikes. 5. If he refuses to eat the main meal, offer another healthy alternative, like a sandwich or a cereal. 6. Make sure to cut your toddler's food into small bite size pieces. 7. Gently encourage your toddler to try out new food products. 8. Do not impose the clean your plate rule. When your toddler tells you he is full, do not force him to eat. 9. Offer your child small portions, like 1/3 or 1/4 of the usual adult portion. Give him lesser amount of food than what you think he can consume and let him ask for extra servings. 10. Make desserts a part of your meals, and not as a form of reward. ~ Monica McBride

Robert crossed Pulteney Bridge with a light step. He grinned at the boy raking odiferous horse manure to the curb and tipped him well for his service. He nodded - with a grin - to the puzzled driver of a hack heading into the city. And he bowed - with a grin - as he stepped aside to allow the weary-looking woman with two toddlers to pass.
None to see him would realize that Robert had fallen under the hooves of a racing carriage and risen from the other side unscathed - metaphorically speaking, of course. ~ Cindy Anstey

She had a woman's swagger at twelve-and-a-half. Hair: strawberry-blonde, and I vaguely recall a daisy in the crook of her ear. She was an inch taller than me, two with the ponytail; smooth cheeks and darling brown eyes that marbled in luscious contrast with her magnolia skin; cream, melting to peach, melting to pink. She beamed like a cherub without the baby fat; a tender neck; pristine lips that would never part for a dirty word. Her body
of no interest to me at the time
was wrapped from neck to toes with home-made footie pajamas, the kind they make for toddlers, but I didn't laugh; the girl filled that silly one-piece ensemble as if it were couture. ~ Jake Vander Ark

There was no fucking chance I was going to hang out with Jennifer doing scrapbooking. I couldn't trust her with scissors for one thing. ~ Morgan Parker

When you've had one call after another and your little one is tugging on your shirt, remember what really matters. When the milk is splattered all over the floor and those little eyes are looking at you for your reaction, remember what really matters. It takes 5 minutes to clean up spilled milk; it takes much longer to clean up a broken spirit. ~ Rebecca Eanes

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. ~ Peter M. Senge

It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed. ~ Paula Poundstone

I like to call it 'album making' because everybody hears the word scrapbooking and thinks, 'All the glue and the glitter - I don't have time for that!' ~ Nancy O'Dell

Imagine that you do not have any control over most things, which by the way describes toddlers' daily experiences. Something makes you feel frustrated and angry but you cannot control your own emotions. On top of that, you are told that your feelings are wrong ("It's no big deal. No need to be upset."), your attempt to heal hurts is met with disapproval ("Don't cry."), and you are scolded for something you cannot help ("Stop being a baby.") Wouldn't you want to throw an explosive fit, too? ~ Pamela Li

Many Christians wonder if it is good for children to have them in the regular service. After all, they cannot understand what is going on. But imagine saying that you're not going to have toddlers sit at the table for meals with the family because they do not understand the rituals or manners. Or keeping infants isolated in a nursery with nothing but mobiles and squeaky toys because they cannot understand the dialogue of the rest of the family around them. We know, instinctively, that it's important for our children to acquire language and the ordinary rituals of their family environment in order to become mature. ~ Michael S. Horton

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops.

When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is t ~ Jane Jacobs

We continue to blame the poor for their own condition. They are lazy. We do not want to know that the poorest of the poor are toddlers under three years of age. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

Once your baby starts to walk you'll realize why cribs are designed like prisons from the early 1900s. This is clearly because toddlers are a danger to themselves. The main responsibility for a parent of a toddler is to stop them from accidentally hurting or killing themselves. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Enzymes for children Digestive enzymes can be given to infants, toddlers, and young children. All tests show that there are no side effects to using digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes can be mixed with food, water, or juice. There is no addiction to using enzymes. Once you stop using them, your body just takes over and continues to excrete them. Using enzymes saves your own power to create them later in life. ~ Rudy Silva

Tantrums are not bad behavior. Tantrums are an expression of emotion that became too much for the child to bear. No punishment is required. What your child needs is compassion and safe, loving arms to unload in. ~ Rebecca Eanes

Toddlers ask many questions, and so do school children - until about grade three. By that time, many of them have learned an unfortunate fact, that in school, it can be more important for self-protection to hide one's ignorance about a subject than to learn more about it, regardless of one's curiosity. ~ Jan Hunt

The false pride of perennial celebration, of wearing flag lapel pins while betraying the values that the flag stands for, is like the self-esteem curriculum for toddlers, where everything is praised and no achievement ultimately has meaning. ~ Anne-Marie Slaughter

Swept away with the idea, he said it felt like an awakening to him. More like a remembering, I think. The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction - not just for Native peoples, but for everyone. Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion - until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

I look at my parents
the way mothers look at their toddlers.
I take every chance
to witness them undisturbed.
To study every detail
as if sitting for an important exam.
I take note of their hands,
the curves of their ears, the way they
envelop a room and greet others.
The way their souls shine through
when they speak of something they love,
like a candid photograph
unveiling beauty and truth.
Even though I am present
in the same space as them,
I am distanced
because of the intensity of my love.
Every heartbeat reminds me
of the ephemeral nature of our bodies
and the blessedness of these moments
until my father looks up from his book
and catches me smiling.
And like a child he is bewildered for a moment
and smiles back. ~ Kamand Kojouri

Everett and his mom broke up with me,thank you very much."
"You shouldn't have made out with him in his mother's scrapbooking room," Liz said sagely.
"We're seventeen,"I snapped, "and Everett and I had been dating for two months when that happened.What were we supposed to do,eat dinner with his family and keep our hands on the table where everyone could see them?I mean, you and Davis are Mr. and Mrs. Polite Reserve, and even you were macking in the hot tub an hour ago." I picked up a pink fuzzy pillow that had fallen from he bed and threw it at Liz.
"You were?" Chloe gushed. "You what? Hello,I need the details of Liz and Davis."
"Hayden!" Liz squealed, ducking behind Chloe. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have made out with Everett.I'm saying you shouldn't have done it in his mother's scrapbooking room.Location, location,location.You might have disorganized her supplies.Some people are very particular about their chipboard getting mixed up with their cardstock."
I closed my eyes,inhaled through my nose,and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.
"Watch out,"Chloe whispered to Liz. "She's doing yoga."
My eyes snapped open.So much for controlling my temper. "Why the hell didn't you tell me Nick's mother left before I went into the sauna with him?" I hollered at Chloe.
"We didn't know he was here!" Liz came to Chloe's defense. "And if we'd warned you about him before he got here," Chloe explain ~ Jennifer Echols

Others point to data showing that even as toddlers, 40 percent of American two-year-olds watch TV for at least three hours a day - hours they are not interacting with people who can help them learn to get along better. The more TV they watch, the more unruly they are by school age. ~ Daniel Goleman

Maybe the body is taking responsibility where the mind is not. It's scrapbooking for us. ~ Heidi Julavits

Imagine a life-form whose brainpower is to ours as ours is to a chimpanzee's. To such a species, our highest mental achievements would be trivial. Their toddlers, instead of learning their ABCs on Sesame Street, would learn multivariable calculus on Boolean Boulevard. Our most complex theorems, our deepest philosophies, the cherished works of our most creative artists, would be projects their schoolkids bring home for Mom and Dad to display on the refrigerator door. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

My dad takes most of the pictures in our family, and he makes scrapbooks. This means he gets to figure out what's important for us to remember...
I guess my mom could make a scrapbook, but she doesn't. And I could do it and so could my brothers, but then we would need extra pictures. Plus we're just kids and we don't have time for that.
I know the scrapbooks we'd make would be different from Dad's.
But the person who does the work gets to write the history. ~ Holly Goldberg Sloan

Education - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole. ~ Ben Bernanke

We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. We
could no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we could
without pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through our
notes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,
giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editing
within arm's reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

I've found my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven. So, for every eight hour day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done. The other seven hours are preparing for writing: pacing around the house, collapsing cardboard bxes for recycling, reading the DVD extras pamphlet from BBC Pride & Prejudice, getting snacks lined up for writing, and YouTubing toddlers who learned the 'Single Ladies' dance. I know. Isn't that horrible? So, basically, writing this piece took me the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. ~ Mindy Kaling

There were babies, and toddlers, and five-year-old boys in Batman shirts. There was even a little girl dressed as Elsa. For no reason. It's not Halloween. But go ahead, cutie pie, you dress up as Elsa all you want. You do you. ~ Andrea Portes

I am Hannah fucking Kabbah. I go to the supermarket every week without a shopping list. I once memorised an entire psychology textbook the day before an exam after realising I'd been revising the wrong module for weeks. And guess what? I got an A. I spent the first few years of my professional life keeping multiple toddlers alive. Do you know how hard it is to keep toddlers alive, Ms. Chai Latte? It's really fucking hard. And I was good at it. I do not get things wrong. I do not make mistakes. I do not fuck up FUCKING CHAI LATTES. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

This is what Hannah thought. But what she said was...

Oh. Wait. Shit. ~ Talia Hibbert

TLC should stand for Toddlers, Lunatics, and Cake. ~ Natasha Leggero

Teenagers talk about the idea of having each other's 'full attention.' They grew up in a culture of distraction. They remember their parents were on cell phones when they were pushed on swings as toddlers. Now, their parents text at the dinner table and don't look up from their BlackBerry when they come for end-of-school day pickup. ~ Sherry Turkle

Toddlers were running the place like some miniature version of Lord of the Flies, complete with weapons made from blocks and tinker toys. One of them came at me, charging my knees and the pink pod that held my precious baby. I screamed and made a run for the front door, flip-flops sticking to squelchy dried puddles of juice. I let out a relieved sigh when we were outside breathing fresh air. The near-deafening roar of the highway was a lark song compared to the screeching we'd just escaped. ~ Piper Vaughn

On Work and Charity
Likewise (Maria) watched (Martin's) toils and knew the measure of the midnight oil he burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that it ever in the world there was charity, this was it. ~ Jack London

All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it. ~ Robert Henri

A Photographer's Poem

To take a photograph is to learn new steps
Like a toddler's first walk from start to end
Visualize a dream, a paradigm, a theme
It could be about anywhere, anyone, any moment or anything
Let that sink in until your eyes see clearly
What image you cease to create to preserve in dearly
With a camera you take the picture in mind
A photographer's mistake is to leave it behind
Take it wherever a journey is to take place
There will always be something that comes across your ways ~ S.S. Lorenzo

Story time isn't much better. Imagine sitting in a circle with acquaintances, chanting spells and being drilled on a variety of subjects. "What sound does a duck make?" Who cares? When will I need to know that? How is this knowledge of barnyard animals and their corresponding noises going to improve my life? Toddlers who get up to stretch their legs or explore will be publicly admonished. The participation reward will not be a glazed doughnut, so don't bother. ~ Bunmi Laditan

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. ~ Alfred North Whitehead