Mom Things: Good, Bad, & Ugly in a Neat Little Package

You feel like a broken record most days with the constant Take Your Plate to the Sink, Put Your Clothes in the Hamper, and That is Not Where Your Shoes Go reps...but every 10th time, when they do it without instruction, you feel a pitter-patter in your heart.  It's called hope (and a little bit of accomplishment).

On jelly toast days, you have found that the best way to prevent your children from looking like Joker's offspring is to cut the toast diagonally in fourths.  Just trust me on this.

Your three year old is a little too interested in beauty products and has helped herself to "lotion" of the Vicks Vaporub and Sarna Anti-Itch varieties.  (And if you don't know how pungently these smell, consider yourself lucky.)  Those aren't something a bath can remedy in one shot.

You understand the dangers of what might be lurking in the silence when the kids are awake.  It goes without saying.  Sometimes, it's a 14 month old who has escaped to the office, moved the desk chair, replaced it with a step stool, and is proudly pounding away at the keyboard.  And that's just so stinkin' cute you have to take a picture.

After a blood-curdling scream by your three year old at the sight of a spider, you see her knight in shining armor (her big brother) come to the rescue by throwing a soccer ball at it.  It really is the simple moments like this that make your heart sing.

For some reason your three year old thinks the gigantic bank on the way to school is "where Ben has to go if he gets in a fight", and she is terrified of it.  You assume this means she thinks it's a jail.  And you're not above using this to your advantage when she's being unruly...

On a ten minute trip to Kohl's to spend your Kohl's cash two hours before it expired, your son broke his flip-flop, your middle daughter dropped the entire contents of the purse that she insisted on bringing into the store in the middle of the men's department, and your toddler ripped no less than 16 articles of clothing off of their hangers.  After you check out you think, "Phew.  That was a pretty successful trip!"

Just when you had come to terms with the idea that your son didn't need you to walk him inside on his first day of first grade, he changed his mind and said, "Maybe you can walk me in today."  And you didn't even bother trying to conceal your smile.  Maybe he still "needs" you after all.

You have an emergency lesson on tact with your kids after an embarrassing meal at IHOP resulted in your son pointing out someone's very large ears and your daughter announcing that she was "scared of the lady with pink hair".

You know that this is your third child because you would have never let your first get that close to the edge of a pool without being close enough to catch him.  And you surely wouldn't have taken a picture when they chose to dive right in.

Bonus #11 (because it's my blog and I make the rules):  When your three year old says, "I need to go to the potty really badly," you beam with pride.  Score one for the three year old who uses adverbs correctly!

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