Prompted by my recent birthday, I started looking back on the year to what I've learned. Someday I might put it altogether in my autobiography that I plan to entitle, Why is Everything I Touch Sticky?--The True Story of How One Woman Couldn't Stop Adding Children to Her Family and How She and Her Husband Survived. Maybe if I wait long enough Angelina will write it and I won't have to. My favorite thing is to tell Erik that Brad and Angelina are "winning". I don't really think that. I mean obviously they are winning in some pretty obvious ways that don't necessarily have anything to do with their kids. I read recently that there was concern and speculation over Angelina's mental health because since the twins were born, she's crying everyday. To that I say, no shit. She's got 6 kids under the age of 7. Of course she is. But I digress...Here's what I've learned in the past year:
1. Don't bother looking---always assume the toilet needs flushing.
2. It pays to have baby wipes in every room of the house and the car. They make great, non-toxic, multi-purpose cleaning wipes.
3. If you have a family 5 and haven't been doing two loads of laundry a day, you have been fooling yourself.
4. At the rate my spine is compressing and Ava is growing, she will, with out a doubt, be taller than me when she's 17.
5. When it isn't 100 degrees outside, everyone is much happier.
6. Ava can read things like, "To that I say, no shit."
7. In a discussion that was not meant to predict or negotiate, Erik and I realized we have the same number of children that we feel we could manage before we "broke". And that number is 7. We decided with much certainty that 8 would indeed be our simultaneous undoing.
8. The more connected children feel to you, the more cooperation you receive from them.
9. I can make a mean beet pancake that is beautifully pink, nutritious and delicious that my children scarf up.
10. Erik is better at making up fun games than me, and it makes me jealous.
11. My friend Lynn tried once to explain this to me but I didn't get it because Ava was still very little---It gets a bit harder when they get older because they have their own ideas about life and how things should be. And you have to respect them. Which means less room for your own ideas and how you think things should be. And then you realize they have their own paths. And that you can not pave the path for them, nor can you be their map. You can only be their flashlight. And that is scary and sad and beautiful.
12. When dirt, water, flower petals, sticks, pebbles are mixed together to make a magic potion it is sweetly pretty. After sitting in a bucket for a week it smells like wet monkeys and poo.
13. The more children I have, the more tired and happy I am. Just don't let me get to 8.
Erik would like to add that he learned that children enjoy horse betting. Except the eldest, when she doesn't win any money.
I learned where Ava might have gotten that.
1. Don't bother looking---always assume the toilet needs flushing.
2. It pays to have baby wipes in every room of the house and the car. They make great, non-toxic, multi-purpose cleaning wipes.
3. If you have a family 5 and haven't been doing two loads of laundry a day, you have been fooling yourself.
4. At the rate my spine is compressing and Ava is growing, she will, with out a doubt, be taller than me when she's 17.
5. When it isn't 100 degrees outside, everyone is much happier.
6. Ava can read things like, "To that I say, no shit."
7. In a discussion that was not meant to predict or negotiate, Erik and I realized we have the same number of children that we feel we could manage before we "broke". And that number is 7. We decided with much certainty that 8 would indeed be our simultaneous undoing.
8. The more connected children feel to you, the more cooperation you receive from them.
9. I can make a mean beet pancake that is beautifully pink, nutritious and delicious that my children scarf up.
10. Erik is better at making up fun games than me, and it makes me jealous.
11. My friend Lynn tried once to explain this to me but I didn't get it because Ava was still very little---It gets a bit harder when they get older because they have their own ideas about life and how things should be. And you have to respect them. Which means less room for your own ideas and how you think things should be. And then you realize they have their own paths. And that you can not pave the path for them, nor can you be their map. You can only be their flashlight. And that is scary and sad and beautiful.
12. When dirt, water, flower petals, sticks, pebbles are mixed together to make a magic potion it is sweetly pretty. After sitting in a bucket for a week it smells like wet monkeys and poo.
13. The more children I have, the more tired and happy I am. Just don't let me get to 8.
Erik would like to add that he learned that children enjoy horse betting. Except the eldest, when she doesn't win any money.
I learned where Ava might have gotten that.
3 comments:
This is one of my favorite posts ever. You are hilarious. I love you so much.
Ava's being able to read what you write reminds me of something that happened about a year ago. I was trying to fix the children's lunch
-complicated peanut butter and jelly-, Miles was barking, Safa's diaper was dragging the floor, full of waste material, Eden had bumped her head, Ava was asking a question about astro physics, and I dropped a sandwich peanut butter down on the floor. Before I could catch myself, I said, "Oh, hell!"
Ava looked that look at me and I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. That's a bad word." She said, "Gram, HAIL is not a bad word, it's just a description of something." Thank heaven for my Texas accent. Gram
Isn't number 8 true of husband and wife too? : )
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