Things all parents should be told…but aren’t

By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom’s Corner
Dear Mom’s Corner,
You wrote an article one time about things your children had taught you. I was wondering if you could reprint it. My daughter just recently had her first baby and I wanted to give her a “heads-up.”
Thanks,
Here’s the article, but I also have a suggestion. Tell your daughter to try to keep a small notebook handy to jot down things her child does. Usually I can just write down a few words to jog my memory. Of course, some things you just don’t forget! It would also be a wonderful gift if you could write down a few of your daughter’s antics. She could refer to it when her own child is driving her to distraction!
I was talking to a lady the other day and she asked where I lived. My first thought was to say “Toddler Land.” I guess that’s because my life does tend to revolve around my kids. As we talked more she asked how many children I had. I replied six. She responded, “You know they do have something called birth control.” I just laughed and told her that I actually only “had” 3 and the other 3 I adopted. Then she really looked at me like I was crazy. Some days I do wonder about my intelligence, but I have learned a lot from my children. Let me share some examples with you.
One of the first things I learned was that young children are very literal. When my third child was born my second child was about 2-1/2. I had just changed the baby and folded up the diaper. I handed it to my son and said, “Honey, can you get rid of this for Mommy?” He took the diaper and got rid of it. Did you know it costs about $150 to get a diaper out of the main drain in a house? When I saw the diaper gel coming out of the drain as the plumbers where flushing it, I immediately remember what I had said. I went to my son and asked him exactly how he had gotten rid of the diaper. He very proudly replied, “I put it in the potty. That’s where the yucky goes.” Good grief.
Did you know that if you stick one end of a roll of toilet tissue in the toilet and then flush that eventually the toilet will suck down the entire roll?
Did you know that if you don’t flush the toilet enough after it has sucked down the roll of tissue that it will stop up?
Little boys love to play “sink the toilet paper” when potty training. (Make sure they understand that it has to be in the toilet first.)
I guarantee the day after your foster child falls off the school bus and lands face first on the pavement your social worker will call and tell you that the birth parents want to have a visit.
Cats do not like to have Vick’s Vapor Rub smeared on them. (This is from a friend. Her girls heard the kitty sneeze and thought it had a cold.)
Cats who try to lick Vick’s Vapor Rub off tend to need to go to the vet.
Stroller wheels can snap off when they are pushed off the concrete sidewalk and into a large hole filled with gravel. This is the pits when you’re at a soccer field all day doing 3 games with a 14-month-old who doesn’t walk yet!
Be very careful when letting a 5-year-old push the stroller on a sidewalk.
Gifted children can have very stupid moments. (I know of two gifted kids — not kidding, truly gifted, one in math and one in language— that couldn’t figure out how to cross a busy street at a crosswalk. I refer to this, giftedly stupid.)
Don’t ever tell a gifted child to find something to entertain themselves — because they will. Did you know you can make a wagon traveling the Oregon Trail using a riding lawnmower with a trailer behind it?
Did you know that if you hit a VHS tape with a sledge hammer is will shatter into a million pieces?
Did you know that the tape from a VHS tape is long enough to stretch across a 1/2 acre yard about 3 times?
Lawnmowers don’t like VHS tape pieces. Talk about projectiles!
It is possible to use enough styling gel to keep a girl’s hair up in a ponytail even after the elastic band has been removed.
Washing lots of styling gel out of very thick hair takes at least four shampooings.
Washing machines do not like ten pound weights. Learned this one from hubby.
Husbands are like children. If you tell them to go “dump” a basket of laundry in the washing machine they will do it. They will not notice the ten pound weight that your 4-year-old hid in the basket.
When a washing machine with a ten pound weight in it goes into spin cycle and the end of the weight breaks off there is enough force for it to go through the side of the washing machine.
A husband’s idea of “keeping the laundry caught up” and the wife’s idea are totally different.
If you have to be off your feet for a couple weeks after surgery and you ask your hubby if he’s keeping the laundry caught up and he says, “Don’t worry the kids are wearing clean clothes to school.” You better worry.
It is a bad idea to try and do 10 loads of laundry in one day 2 weeks after you’ve had neck surgery.
Did you know that a 5-year-old with a sinus infection has the capacity to cover the entire front of her flower girl dress when she sneezes?
Did you know that it takes an entire box of tissues to clean up the aforementioned flower girl dress.
I admit that at the time most of these happened they were not all that funny, but they are now. Well, some of them anyway. What’s my point? I try to remember these things, because the children love to hear about things that happen to them (or more likely their siblings) when they were younger. Also, when I think I am just about at the end of my rope and seriously began to contemplate running away to the Caribbean, I think about how funny the situation will be later — usually much, much later.
If you have a question or comment, please e-mail it to: moms-corner@juno.com.