When you’re a parent, you tend to repeat yourself a lot.

I constantly find myself telling my son the same things over and over again in attempts to get him to listen. It’s partially because he’s only three and therefore very stupid, and it’s partially because he’s diabolical.

I’m pretty sure he pretends to be dumber than he is, feigning ignorance just so he can continue to do whatever idiotic, dangerous and destructive thing he’s currently doing and then act all surprised (read: start crying) when he finally realizes we’re mad. The dude’s favorite word is “no!”, so it’s a tad suspect when he suddenly doesn’t understand our stern reprimands and just keeps swinging his plastic baseball bat perilously close to the TV.

Whether it’s his stupidity or his subterfuge, Mom and Buried and I have to constantly repeat the same collection of phrases, which I’ve compiled below. If there were an english-to-parenting dictionary, there’d be a list of “common phrases” at the front, and it would probably look a little like this one.

Dad and Buried’s Top Ten Most Repeated Parenting Phrases

• “Do you want to go to time-out?”
• “Don’t eat that!”
• “Go ask Mommy.”/”Go ask Daddy.”
• How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?” (Not usually verbatim, but something similar gets said during nearly every meal.)
• “Not tonight. I have a headache.” (Sorry, wrong list).
• “HOLD STILL AND LET ME PUT YOUR SHOES ON!”
• “I’m not going to tell you again: it’s bedtime. Now shut your eyes and go to sleep!” (Spoiler alert: we always tell him again. And again. And again…)
• “What do you have on tap? *toddler starts screaming at waitress* Never mind. I’ll take six.”
• “Get that out of your mouth!”
• Angry swearing under my breath in order to calm myself down before I curse out and/or sell my kid to the next passer-by.
• “No!”/”Stop!”/”Don’t do that!”/”What are you DOING?”/”Come back!”/”Put that down!”/”I SAID NO!”/”Are you insane?!”/”SIGH.”/”Just sit down and watch your show.”

Honorable Mention:
“Stop biting!”; “We don’t hit.“; “Pain don’t hurt.”; “What do you say?” (as in: please, thank you, you’re welcome, etc.); “Who’s the master?”; “How do we ask nicely?”; “#YOLO”; “Apologize to Daddy!”; “Why do you say this to me, when you know I will kill you for it?“