Whoever gets the front seat of the car is absolutely PIVOTAL. Identifying the chain of command amongst children starts early. If I had a nickel for everytime my kids piled into the car and raced to the van for the "Front Seat" position, I'd be as rich as Oprah Winfrey. I don't know why this is...they're all at my mercy for the heater being on full blast, we fight over the automatic window controls (I saw UP), and of course the radio station...good GRIEF! If you're wondering what the next favorite spot is...it's in the back seat, so you can kick the back of the seat of the person in front of you...oh yes, this is undeniably torture.
Boredom is the platform for ultimate creativity... I can see it perfectly in my head...all the kids are splayed out in the living room with bottles of soda and rice krispy wrappers strewn around...I think to myself, an IV of constant fluid would be more sanitary plus I wouldn't need the carpets cleaned as much, but that's probably under the classification of some type of child abuse. Someone will inevitably conceive of the idea of flipping boogers...ultimate goal is to irritate a sister until she stomps of crying or worse yet, tags me on my cell phone with mobile uploads of the event..just in case I cannot conceive of it myself. There's a talent to flipping boogers you know and it falls under the category of fart jokes, burping contests and other imitated bodily functions that make noise. So, there has to be some creativity going on here amidst the boredom right? I mean, when I was younger we sang into a spatula to some song by ABBA like Afternoon Delight or Michael Jackson's Puppy Love. Granted, I didn't end up a singer but I still sing into my spatula when nobody's looking.. at least the one that didn't end up stuck in the blender that is (that's a blog for another day).
Kids Will Eat What They Cook... This is true actually. Around my house, Kraft Mac & Cheese rules like a goddess and is bought in cartons. This includes pancakes and waffles with the invention of a waffle maker that gives you a waffle with ABC's and cookie dough sold in the tube.
Not Everything An Older Brother Suggests Is Actually A Good Thing... Two older brothers in my household translates into a whole lot of drama on any given day. When the boys were around 8 and 5 respectively they tied their little sister to a tree...some cowboy and indian thing, then left here there for an hour until I discovered she was missing. I know that sounds bad, but I was working from home, trying to multi-task laundry, kids and work...things happen you know? There's also the time one brother convinced his sister she was adopted from an orphange in Russia which is why she resembled nobody in the family (not true!). Plus I vaguely remember ice cubes made with Kool-Aid and telling sister they were made with some toxin that would turn her the same color in 48 hours. You get the idea..
A Day Without Doing Nothing Is A Day Wasted... So, this one is pretty self-explanatory but for a mother's sanity, it means everything. Just five minutes to stare at a blank, white wall can sometimes provide the necessary resolve to push on...so, every day needs just a little bit of "doing nothing" in order to be able to do "everything".
Grandma's House Is Sacred Ground Where Magical Things Happen... My kids figured out pretty early on that when things weren't going quite their way, a trudge over to Gram's house may make things better. It doesn't help that grandma lives a few hundred yards away, that she has an endless supply of chocolate hoarded in the house just for them, a WII Fit game in the basement for endless hours of play, a willing shoulder to cry on and spill out all the "mean things mom makes them do"... (i.e., the dishes, laundry, run the sweeper)...I'm okay with this..after all, we all need a break. I've been known to flop down on her couch more than once and vegetate as if I were 16 again.
No comments:
Post a Comment