Nowadays, aside from the occasional inservice, my learning is limited to appliance instruction manuals and everyday-life lessons. It is those lessons, I've found, that are the most valuable.
Here are a few things I have learned:
- You can burn things in the crock pot.
- Children, like dogs, can smell fear.
- Once the toilet becomes the enemy of a 2 year old boy, there is no healing that feud. It seems some are born with an iron will.
- Diapers explode between the hours of 3-5am, and anytime you are in a hurry.
- Once stuffed into the ear, chocolate cake and raisins look a lot alike.
- With a little practice, you can breastfeed anywhere; changing a diaper on your lap as 30 000ft will always be just plain tricky.
- People on airplanes are more afraid of children than they are of terrorists or plane crashes.
- Chivalry is pretty much dead. And girls...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
- High heels are not worth the pain. But they are worth trying on every now and again so we can see our legs reach their full potential.
- Lycra is a new mom's best friend.
- Lycra is my best friend forever.
- Women in the 1920's were on to something with those swimming suits. Sure you'd drown in under a minute, but no one got a peek at anything nasty.
- Someone screaming angrily in your face is best met with silence and perhaps a "maybe they let you out of the hospital a wee bit early" smile.
- People who have absolutely nothing to do with you are somehow burdened by the fact that you have more than one child.
- Women will have fat sucked, skin pulled, hair singed and wear stilettos in an airport and still think natural childbirth is sadistic.
- If a toddler lays down in the grocery store, and you threaten to leave him, and he ignores you, so then you do leave him.....the checkout girl will bring him out to you. Whether you want her to or not.
- Drive through Starbucks is God's reminder that we are loved.
- Toys are now sold in packages designed by Secret Service operatives to ensure that two frantic adults cannot conceivably free Barbie/Thomas/Pony from their prison before a child's screaming reaches deafening levels.
- Toddlers will stare dumbly as you beg them to repeat "mommy", "daddy", "please" or any other such utterance - but the first time you break a toe on the sawhorse left in the middle of the hallway and yell "SHIT" - the little darling will embrace the English language.
- Someone used my thighs for target practice, and they didn't even ask. (think road signs in rural Saskatchewan - yep...tain't pretty).
- People in the service industry are at two ends of the career spectrum - training bras or Metamucil. I'll take the fiber-seeker any day. I cannot be ignored by another size 0 twit with her hair in her eyes. I'd rather have to yell "which aisle are the stool softeners in?" three times until Fred turns up his hearing aid, than to have Bindy, Mindy or Trixie stare blankly at me through a blanket of hair, smack her gum, and mumble "I, like, don't even know what that is..." and then return to her statue-like stance behind the counter.
- Parents are hard. In-laws are harder. A whole different strand of crazy.
- Postage stamps and stickers look the same. If you're 3. Both are equally hard to get off the glass coffee table.
- Sharpe marker on hardwood is tough to hide. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will get it off, but you'll forever trip over the "rough" spot.
- A dad can turn purple and stop breathing for a very long time while standing over Sharpe-marker artwork on the hardwood.
- Old people are not bad drivers. Bad drivers are bad drivers. The older ones just have more practice at it.
- A slightly intoxicated 6 foot 4 inch man hell bent on "shaking his booty" will never be crowded on a dance floor.
- Slightly intoxicated 6'4" booty-shaking husbands are one of the funniest, sexiest, and most endearing sights a women would ever want to see (once you wipe away your tears).
- Peeing in the ditch when you're drunk. Easy. Peeing in the ditch when you're sober. Embarrassing.
- When applied to the bathroom cabinet, a little eyeliner can go a long way.
- There are 5 649 236 feet of toilet paper on a single roll. Enough to go through my house and around a small child 47 times (these numbers are not based on scientific fact - rather an educated guess).
- After 5 years and 3 kids my husband is still flabbergasted by my ability to produce Kleenex, seemingly, out of thin air. This I've learned. I still can't figure out why he's amazed. My grandma could hand you a tissue if you asked her for one while she was treading water.
- Life is full of lessons. I can't say I feel very smart so far.
