20 Things I Learned This Week

The Baby has had a nasty cold and a fever this whole week. That's right, no school for the entire week. Since the only thing the kids are really good about sharing is germs, the Girl and the Boy have hacking coughs, too. In celebration of the partial retention of my sanity, I now present you with my list of the 20 things I learned this week:

1. "The Legend of Pinkfoot" episode of Bubble Guppies does not improve with repeated viewings.
2. Do not show the movie "Home Alone" to children with anxiety issues.
3. It is possible to feel envious of Macaulay Culkin's character in "Home Alone" because he got to be...well, home alone and only had to deal with bumbling burglars.
4. Do not bribe your sick child to take medicine with the promise that if she does it, you will drink balsamic vinegar. Just don't.
5. The best way to get your children to work together is to so totally alienate them with your crankiness that they gang up on you.
6. You can be driven insane by your child if she requests that you say a password every time you pass by her, try to get her to sit in her car seat, give her a cup of juice, and put on her shoes.
7. "I love Santa" is really more a a pass phrase than a password.
8. Four year olds don't care to learn the difference between a word and a phrase and may tell you to, "stop it, Mommy" if you try to explain it to them.
9. The Georgia Democrats are so desperate for money that they will not accept, "I have a sick child that I am trying to get to bed" as a valid excuse and you will be forced to close the door in someone's face.
10. You do not win mother of the year by taking a feverish child medicated with Motrin with you to have your hair colored and cut.
11. You really don't win mother of the year when you allow the sick child to lie on the hair-covered floor at the salon and watch "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" on the iPad.

12.You will be unable to convince the Jehovah's Witnesses at the door that "the joy of Christmas is spending time with family" when you have a screaming preschooler wrapped around your leg.
13. Sometimes an un-medicated child is preferable to one who has taken Motrin and tries to leap from the couch to the coffee table. Repeatedly.
14. Counting the cars with antlers and Rudolph noses is only a good driving activity if you make sure that the child can make a visual connection with each car that you count. Otherwise, she'll try to make you turn around to find the one she missed seeing and everyone will be crying by the time you get home.
15. Screaming, "I know you don't feel well and I'm sorry" at a sick child is not compassionate or productive.
16. Do not allow a four year old to hold the sixty dollars worth of Christmas stamps that you have just purchased or you will soon only have forty dollars worth of Christmas stamps and a water bottle that you could mail to Guam.
17. Knowing that your husband is on a work trip to St. Simon's Island while you are living in a tubercular ward may lead to bitterness and resentment in less evolved beings.
18. If spray starch gets on hardwood floors, the floor will become slippery as ice.
19. If a sick child is screaming for you in the middle of the night, you might forget about the slippery floor, fall, and sustain some injuries to the left side of your body.
20. "Going to sleep" should not count as the highlight to anyone's day.

Somehow, despite being nearly buried under discarded tissues streaked with mucous, Abe the Elf managed to make his nightly flight to the North Pole and come back in time to hide for the children. Enjoy!