FOODS THAT BABIES HURL AT THE CEILING

* Anything from jars with babies on the labels

* Anything the baby ate the day before, so you went out and bought $30 worth of it

FOODS THAT BABIES HURL AT THE DOG

* Anything in a weighty container

* Taffy

* Zwieback (NOTE: Zwieback has sharp edges, so the dog should wear protective clothing)

FOODS THAT BABIES EAT

* Anything from vending machines

* Caulking

* Anything with dead ants on it

* Sand

This period is often referred to as the “terrible twos,” not so much because children this age start behaving any worse than before, but because they reach the size where if they swing at you, they’ll hit you square in the crotch.

The important thing to remember here is that your child is only trying to establish its independence. This is a necessary part of its development: It must learn to make its own decisions, to interact with the world directly rather than through the protective mediation of its parents. Your child must also learn that when it hits a bigger person in the crotch, it should pretend to be very, very sorry.

Discipline during this phase consists of choosing the appropriate Escalating Futile Parental Disciplinary Threat. A handy reference chart is printed here for your use.

Remember that when your two-year-old “misbehaves,” it’s usually because of his natural curiosity. It is not cruelty that causes him to thrust a Bic pen deep into the dog’s nostril; it is a genuine desire to find out how you will react.

The time-tested way to react is to work your way up the ladder of Traditional Escalating Futile Parental Disciplinary Threats.

1. “You’re going to poke somebody’s eye out.”

2. “You’re going to make me very angry.”

3. “You’re going straight to your room.”

4. “I’m going to tell your father.”

5. “I’m going to tell Santa Claus.”

6. “I’m not going to give you any dessert.”

7. “I’m not going to buy you any more Hot Wheels.”

8. “I’m very angry now.”

9. “I’m going to give you a good smack.”

10. “I mean it.”

11. “I really mean it.”

12. “I’m not kidding.”

13. (SMACK).

NOTE: If there’s a real discipline emergency, such as your child has somehow gotten hold of an acetylene torch, you may have to start right in at Threat Number 8. But many two-year-olds also develop seemingly irrational fears. They get these from Mister Rogers. He tries to reassure his young viewers about standard childhood fears, but the children would never have thought of them if Mister Rogers hadn’t brought them up. My son and I once watched Mister Rogers sing this song in which he said over and over, in the most cheerful voice imaginable, that “You can never go down the drain.” By the time he finished, we were both very concerned about going down the drain. And this came at a time when I had just gotten over the fear of being stabbed to death in the shower, which I got from Psycho.

Recently, my son became convinced that a horse was coming into his bedroom at night to get him. The way to cope with this kind of fear is to allow the child to confront it openly. We took Robert to visit some real horses, so he could see for himself that they are nothing more than huge creatures with weird eyeballs and long teeth and hard feet that could stomp him to the consistency of grits in seconds. Aided by this kind of understanding and support from us, Robert eventually stopped imagining his horse, which was good because it was ruining the carpet.

So unless you want your child to develop a set of irrational fears, I advise you not to let him watch Mister Rogers. A far better alternative is the Saturday morning cartoon shows, which instill the healthy and rational fear that evil beings with sophisticated weapons are trying to destroy the planet.

You needed these fears to become a responsible adult, and now it’s time to start passing them on to your child.

* The fear that if you cross your eyes, they’ll get stuck that way.

* The fear that if you go in the water less than an hour after eating, you will get a cramp and sink to the bottom, helpless, and possibly catch cold.

* The fear that public toilet seats have germs capable of leaping more than 20

feet.

* The fear that if you wear old underwear, a plane will crash on you and rip your clothes off and your underwear will be broadcast nationally on the evening news. (“The victim shown here wearing the underwear with all the holes and stains has been identified as...”)

* The fear that if you get in trouble at school, it will go on your Permanent Record and follow you for the rest of your life. (“Your qualifications are excellent, Mr. Barry, but I see here in your Permanent Record that in the eighth grade you and Joseph DiGiacinto flushed a lit cherry bomb down the boys’ room toilet at Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School. Frankly, Mr. Barry, we’re looking for people with more respect for plumbing than that.”)

Pay no attention to the little statements on the boxes that say things like “For Ages 1 to 3.” If you heed these statements, all you’ll buy for the first few years are little plastic shapes that the child is supposed to put in corresponding little holes, which is so exceedingly boring that after five minutes the child will develop an ear infection just for a change of pace. The best toys for a child aged 0 to 3 is a toy that says “For Ages 10 to 14.” The best toy for a child aged 10 to 14 is cash, or its own apartment.

You should also buy Fisher-Price toys. Not for your child. For your own protection. Every Fisher-Price toy has been approved by a panel consisting of dozens of child psychologists and pediatricians and Ralph Nader and Mister Rogers, and in most states failure to own at least a half dozen of these toys is considered legal proof of child abuse.

Another reason why you should buy Fisher-Price toys is that they are built better than any other products you can buy, even in Japan. They’re made out of some plastic-like substance that Fisher-Price imports from another planet, and nothing can harm it. If Fisher-Price had any marketing sense, it would make its cars much bigger and put real engines in them and change the seats so that real people could sit in them. Right now, the seats are designed for little toy ball-headed Fisher-Price people, which have no arms or legs (the Fisher-Price factory employees whack off the arms and legs with little machetes just before shipment). Consumers would snork these cars up like hotcakes. We’d forget all about Toyota.