SacMomsClub.com

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It is inevitable that you will become an underwear sniffer in an effort to do less laundry.

You will never be able to get your kids to actually put their clean and dirty clothes where they belong if they ever catch you doing the sniff test, because it is more fun to declare to everyone that Mommy is an underwear sniffer.

Daddy going out of town usually coincides with Breakfast for Dinner on the menu.

Mommy going out of town means McDonald’s is on the menu. For breakfast, lunch and dinner.

She who goes to bed with dishes in the sink wakes up with ants on the counter.

Baby wipes are surprisingly useful to take off make-up, get crayon art off the wall and wipe down a bathroom prior to an unexpected guest.

Shout stain remover is a gift from God.

There are no such things as friends and respecting the elderly when it comes to getting the front row at your child’s school play or talent show night.

No one ever learns to like Brussel sprouts or lima beans.

The first time your baby sleeps through the night you will wake in a panic that they didn’t wake you.

You are not a mother if you have never caught throw-up in your hands, wiped snot without a tissue or sniffed a baby’s bottom for poo-poo.

Clean it and the mess will follow.

There is no such thing as finished laundry.

Telling your kids that monsters sleep under your bed and not theirs is not bad parenting, it’s sleep preservation.

Kisses and boo-boos go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Air-bags were really invented by a mother to keep kids from fighting over the front seat.

The Cartoon Network is a necessary evil.

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Just a few observations I’ve made in my brief mom career:

School “Picture Day” becomes a battle of looking cool vs. looking adorable after about 2^nd grade.

You’ll do well in life once you concede that Mom always wins.

The harder someone works on a homework assignment, the more likely you’ll find it left on the counter after dropping the kids off at school.

You can get a kid to do anything for a Slurpee.

Your child will decide to try out that inappropriate word or phrase at some point to impress your friends.

They will tell Daddy they learned it from you.

Freshly washed sheets seem to precede a sudden onset of bed wetting.

A booger picked is a booger eaten or at least wiped on your furniture.

Bad karma reveals itself in the group you get stuck chaperoning for the class field trip.

Jell-O or a fruit roll-up can represent a nutritious food group in a pinch.

At some point, your sweet, perfect child will be the kid that throws tanbark or dumps sand on another kid’s head at the park.

If you haven’t spent large chunks of time in every Target, grocery store, department store, Wal-Mart, Costco or Toys R Us bathroom, then you’ve never potty trained a toddler.

If you’ve never been peed on or had to intervene in a public urination, then you only have girl children.

If you don’t know who Zac and Vanessa are, can’t name a Jonas Brother, or don’t know the difference between Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus then you only have boy children.

Watching a sleeping child will make it all better again.

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It‘s my children’s favorite week at school this week. Mr. Bluestein comes to teach them folk dance and folk music appreciation.

For me personally, I can understand why an appreciation for the folk genre needs to be taught. But for my kids, they are in silly song heaven.

They begged me to let them get Mr. Bluestein’s self produced album “…for only $5 Mom!” and have been appreciating the heck out of an eclectic mix of folk songs since I bought it for them. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but who am I to say to cultural enrichment, “Turn that nonsensical garbage down!”?

And yet, with my kids currently in school and I’m free to listen to my own preference of music, I’m still Polly Wolly Doodling around singing, “Turkey in the straw - Hay! Hay! Hay!”

Now I love a good rendition of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” but my kids have keyed in on an original song by Mr. Bluestein and his mighty band of annoying song makers (Skillet Licorice) called “Haunted House.”

My kids looooove this song. But mainly the chorus that goes, “King Kong the gorilla playing ping pong with Godzilla.”  

I haaaaate this song. When I convince the kids to quit playing the inane tune for any excuse I can think of (time to clip the dog’s toenails!), they continue to sing the one line over and over falling all over themselves every time with uncontrolled glee.

“Isn’t that the funniest song, Mom?”

“Isn’t this a great song, Mom?”

“Don’t you just love this song, Mom?”

“You want to hear it again, Mom?

“Did your hear that, Mom? King Kong the gorilla is playing ping pong with Godzilla!”

Oh I heard it. And I am doomed to never forget it. Worst five bucks I’ve ever spent. But if you’re nine years old or under – Mr. Bluestein and his band are the second coming of the Beatles and Money Can Buy Them Love.

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If patience is a virtue, my general moral excellence has a big blemish on it.

At least I’m consistent. I’ve always been this way.

When I was little, I wanted to hurry up and grow up. I was told I was four going on thirty.

In second grade I finished three math books before the rest of the class finished one.

In junior high I got detention when I left class before the teacher excused us because I was done waiting for the rest of the class to be quiet.

I was the first in line at high school graduation and my last name started with an “S”.

The first semester of college I called my dad to cry about four years being too long to get a degree. I wanted to already have it and go start making big money already.

I felt I was very patient waiting for my husband to propose to me, but I did have a tendency to point out jewelry sales in the Sunday paper.

My husband believes the reason our son rolled over, crawled, walked, talked, and did everything early was because I put him through baby boot camp.

Unfortunately, if there is any patience to be found in my body, my daughter snatches it and smothers it, foreshadowing the teenager she will become if I don’t hurry up and learn how to do this patience thing.

But the worst was when I tried to commiserate with my friend, Maria Shriver, about the frustrations of becoming a published author and she admonished me like a naughty school girl with, “You have no choice but to be patient.”

Well, shoot. Why didn’t someone tell me this sooner? Maybe that’s been my problem all along! I thought patience was a choice and I just chose to stand in the line that was moving quicker. The one where you got on with life already.

I guess I already knew it, but Maria was just reminding me the journey in life is not to a final destination. The journey is the destination. So I just need to settle down and enjoy the journey.

(Exaggerated pause) Are we having fun yet?

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Many times I’ve caught myself being in a rush for my kids to grow up.

And I’m talking more philosophical than just not wanting to have to change diapers anymore. Although no one can be faulted for wanting a kid to hurry up and learn how to wipe their own butt.

More like, I thought toddler years would be easier than the demands of infancy. I thought grade school years would be easier than chasing around a toddler. Now I’m finding the grade school years aren’t any easier, they just present a different set of challenges.

Sometimes I’m anxious for my kids to mature so they’ll understand things with a wisdom that buffers them from frustrations of inexperience.

Or I see the seed of their potential and I become anxious to see them blossom into who they will one day become.

I find myself impatiently excited for them to experience all those wonderful firsts in life.

But when I see that my eight year old son can almost fit into my shoes and we’re shopping in the young men’s section; or my seven year old daughter is writing songs about heartbreak and first kisses; and their step stool for the sink shows the dust and cobwebs of decommission, I feel like I’m being penalized for my impatience.

A lesson in careful what you wish for.

It makes me say desperate prayers of penance that I’m in no rush for my kids to be the next Michael Phelps and first woman president.

But thank you Lord, for whizzing me through those days of sitting in the Target bathroom waiting for the tinkle in the toilet and poopie in the potty.