Things I've Learned from My Kids

Yesterday while I was trying to take a nap while listening to the girls take turns protesting their undesired nap sentence, I started to make a list of things in my head that could either drive me crazy or make me laugh and love them more. And believe me, they do both. So, eventually I gave up trying and wrote down my list. I decided to title it: Things I’ve learned from my kids.

1. “F is for Goldfish.” “P is for Tato.”
2. Reasoning with a 2 year-old is a good idea. It goes like this: “Close, but F is for f-f-f-fish.” “Actually, (pointing at the picture) “it’s a goldfish.” “Yes I see, but remember the f (pointing at the letter above the picture)? F is for f-f-f-Fish” “Actually Mama, it’s a goldfish.”
3. “Now lie down and don’t get out of bed again,” really is an invitation to begin rearranging everything in the room the moment I shut the door. Or even better, today it meant, “Please find an obscure water bottle that you stashed under your bed who knows when, take the lid off, and dump the water all over your bed. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to cry about it because I should never have got the idea in your sleepless head in the first place.”
4. “Come here Meri, let’s change your bum,” means “Turn and run for the hills! Run Meri Run!
5. “Look where you’re going” is usually followed by a loud thump. And tears.
6. “Shhh! Quiet!” means you should yell, “WHAT??” And along with that, when I say “Time to go home” at the park, I really mean that I’m eager to test out my parenting skills and since nobody is looking yet, please throw a relentless and very loud tantrum.
7. The lyrics to “Joy to the World” are really “…The Earth receive her keys! Let every hearty-heart, prepare wif him a roomy room…”
8. “Weeding” means different things to different folks. To Jenelle it means shoveling endless amounts of dirt into Mama’s weed bucket. To Meri it means picking up handfuls of dirt, seeing how it tastes, and throwing it in disgust at the nearest passer-by. Honestly, what did you expect it to taste different than the last time?
9. Worms are “sooooooo toot (cute)!” unless they get close.
10. There is an invisible giant haunting our hallway. Oh, and an occasional zoo. “Jenelle, can you go get such and such from your room?” Pitter patter, pitter patter – “Ahhh! An elephant!” “Jenelle, there’s no elephant.” “A hippo?” “No, the hippo’s at the zoo too. “Ahh! A monkey!” “Oh boy.”
11. Spaghetti should always be eaten shirtless.
12. Giving food to Meri on a plate is not the civilized thing to do. Quite the opposite in fact. She finds it quite rude, and therefore, immediately picks it up and dumps the contents off every time.
13. Kids have a special radar. If mom and dad begin to snuggle, off goes the alarm, and everybody wakes up and cries regardless of the time of day or night.
14. Wearing curlers makes me “so, so cute … like a cow.” And in case I was confused, she followed this statement by mooing at me.
15. Crackers go well with any meal (although, I have to admit, I already knew this – and they really hit the spot after chocolate ice cream).
16. Somehow my words change in midair before they enter my kids’ heads. For example: “K’I have some juice?” “Yes you can. I will get you some as soon as I finish changing Meri’s bum.” “K’I have some juice?” “Yes, just a second.” “Can I have some juice??” “Jenelle, please wait.” “K’I have some juice???” “Jenelle! What did I just say?” “Yes, I can have some juice.” “That is not what I said. What did I say?” Short pause. “Can I have some juice now?”
17. What Mama is eating, even if it’s the same thing, always looks SO much better.
18. “Please put that down,” or “don’t play with that,” translates to “Hurry! Play with it as quickly as you can before mom takes it away!!!”
19. An ankle is really called your “gunk.”
20. Figuring things out with kid #1, does not at all help for kid #2, which is one of life’s real cruelties – it just doesn’t seem fair.
21. Don’t ever disrupt the nap schedule – it always backfires. I just wish they wouldn’t disrupt mine.

To be continued later because the kids have noticed me on the computer, and the noise of the keyboard is a temptation not to be overcome - #22.