The Rules of Life, According to my Children

I love my kids, I really do.  They are sweet, kind, generous thoughtful....clearly they take after their father.  They are also, at the end of the day, children. 

And that means that, well, kids will be kids and as much as we love them, they frustrate the living shit of out us.  Daily.  Hourly, even. 

And, at this very moment I hear them arguing and fighting about God knows what, with the door closed.  So, being the BEST MOM EVER (not) I'm letting them duke it out while I write this post.

Here are their rules for life, from their perspective, in no particular order:

1.  If I ask you something over and over and over and over and over and over and over I know you'll eventually wear down, give in and give me what I want.  That's why I relentlessly ask the same friggin' question 20 times or more, even though you say no.  Every. Time.  Just give it up already, Mom, will ya?

2.  If I say I'm full, and there's a half eaten dinner on my plate, what I'm saying is you suck as a chef and this food is crap.  I won't eat it and will swear I'm stuffed to the esophagus, yet, you must give me a snack 20 minutes later when I wander in and tell you I'm starving.  What I WANT you to believe is that I have the metabolism of a hummingbird, but I won't tell you I actually think you are trying to poison me.

3.  When you tell me to go outside and play, I'll drag my feet, stomp around, pretend I'd rather play inside and make a lot of heavy sighing sounds.  But, once I'm out there, the secret is out: I'd REALLY rather be outside than inside the stuffy house playing with crappy old Lego's and barbies whose hair has been "cut & styled" so there isn't any left.  You'll see, because when you call me BACK inside, I'll drag my feet, stomp around and make a lot of heavy sighing sounds.  And it will take you at least 20 minutes and a bribe of a treat to get me indoors.

4.  When you ask me to put my clean laundry away, just know that unless I'm supervised the WHOLE FREAKING TIME, I'll A) hide my hangers, B) stuff my clothes in the dresser, closet, under my bed and in the linen closet to avoid actually putting anything away.  And, I'll ASK YOU where my crap is when I can't find it, because you should know better than to let me put my stuff away unsupervised.

5.  Unless you hide, under lock and key, things you don't want me to "borrow" (like your really expensive printer paper) we will conveniently forget that you've told us 8,000 times and will use your good paper manufacture three dozen paper airplanes.  And we'll totally have a fit when you put them in the recycle bin.

6.  We are expert negotiators.  You may not know this, but we are.  We will negotiate to the gnat's ass our bedtime, how many bites of dinner we have left to eat, which shoes to wear and how long we can play on the computer, iPad, iPhone or Wii.  And we always win.  You just don't know it.

7.  All the things you have purchased for us, like toys, that are stored in our bedrooms, lost their excitement the moment we opened the box.  They are boring and we don't want them anymore.  UNLESS you threaten to donate them, and we'll play with them for hours.  For one day.  And then they'll be boring.  AGAIN.  Sigh.

8.  We know that arguing about our chores for several minutes at a time does not mean we get out of the aforementioned chore, we DO know that it raises your blood pressure and makes you more likely to throw us in time out, which inevitable prolongs the time we have to actually START said chore.  That's how we roll.

9.  When is comes to brushing teeth or washing our hands we'll tell you until we're blue in the face that we've done one or the other.  You MUST KNOW that the ONLY WAY to VERIFY completion of the task is the smell test. Nine times out of ten we haven't brushed or washed.  And it's YOUR fault if we don't.  'Cause you didn't check.

10.  We know we're cute when we're sleeping.  We count on it.  So we're not in as much trouble for items #1-9.  And even though we make you want to sell us on Craigslist sometimes, we do love you.  This is how we show it.  By taking you to the very brink of insanity, to the point of no return, to where all you want to do is pour yourself a tall one and try and remember the days of no children and then we POUNCE, give you a big hug, a messy kiss and tell you we love you and then you feel all warm and fuzzy and remember why you had us in the first place.  Boom.  Done.  Don't even bother to deny it.