Another month, another “funny mom quote” free printable. This time, I have a story to go with it. It’s a true story, and one that illustrates this quote.
The printable
Usually with my funny mom quotes, I create two versions to save on ink. I post one with full color, and the other typically has more white space. This month, I’m including just one as there is plenty of white space in the original.
You can check out my other free printable mom quotes here. As with all my other free printables, you can download any of them from the free resource library. Just fill out the form at the bottom of the post and you’ll receive the password. If you have gmail, any messages from me may end up in your “promotions” tab. So look there if you don’t hear from me and you signed up to receive emails.
My parenting story
Ten years ago I started a family blog to chronicle all the craziness of life when we adopted our first “made in China” kiddo. Recently, I rediscovered it and found it to be a treasure trove of stories. It’ll be a great source of material for future posts here. 🙂
The wonder twins
Before I relate the story, I have to explain who the “WTs” are as the story is about them. “WT” stands for “Wonder Twins.” When Kara came into our family, we had four biological kiddos. The youngest was only a year old. Even though she is nine months older than he is, Kara was developmentally behind. Consequently, they were very much like twins. They got their name from the DC Comics characters who could combine their powers when they would “activate.” If you’ve never seen them, here’s a short clip
At the time that this story was written, the WTs were one-and-a-half and two years old. I had five kids at that time. When you finish this story, you will believe in miracles. That’s because our family would grow by three more kids.
Wonder Twin powers activate
I needed to do some Amazon shopping. I thought I was off to a good start – twins were fed and watered and well rested, toys enough to rival FAO Shwartz. What more could they want?
I stationed myself with the laptop at the kitchen table so I’d be close to whatever action would transpire. The first action took place right where I was. One little hand reached up to grab a full cup of water that an older kid left behind. There it went, spilling on the table (thankfully away from the laptop) and cascading onto the floor, forming a nice little puddle in which the WTs could stomp. As I cleaned up the water spill, one of the WTs got a hold of a box of goldfish and did a gravity experiment. Hmm, if I hold the box upside down and shake really hard (even harder when I see my mom lunging for me) it rains goldfish!
Why is it quiet?
With the goldfish and the water cleaned up, I resumed my date with Amazon. The WTs had wandered into the other room which I thought was great. It was lovely, it was so quiet and…wait a minute, why is it quiet???? When I went to investigate, I saw the two of them tearing through Daniel’s school box. It had all the contraband items: pencils, crayons, scissors, etc. I could see that Micah had already been hard at work on his wall of many colors.
You see, Micah has this magical ability to find any writing implements, particularly markers, that have been left behind. Fulfilling his creative desires, he goes to one spot on one wall and makes lines with the marker. Sometimes the marker can be removed (though I discovered that even washable markers make the paint come off when you clean the markings), other times it cannot. This time he did not use a marker, but branched out into another medium: pencil sketching.
What pants?
I picked up the items from Daniel’s box (with the WTs help, they enjoy picking things up almost as much as dumping things out) and went back to the laptop. The WTs would wander through, and I would just make a mental note of where they were. I glanced up one time to see Kara walking around with no pants. When I found her pants it was a signal to Kara that a game was afoot. She shrieked with laughter at the sight of me with her pants and tore off in the opposite direction. Believe you me, this is not the same child who just months ago had the drunken sailor walk. She takes off at warp speed when she is being pursued.
Giggles are dangerous
Okay, children are fully clothed, back to the computer. I was making good headway and must have been concentrating a bit too hard on what I was doing. I knew the WTs were in the family room and that they were having a grand time doing something. Like silence, the eruption of giggles is also like a warning siren. I glanced up from the computer to watch the WTs orchestrate a new gymnastic maneuver. They would climb onto an end table, flip over onto the couch, run across the couch and roll off in an impressive dismount. There are times in which I wish I could pretend I did not see things, this was one of them. But it is my job to be a killjoy, so I put their acrobatic careers on hold.
Raining cereal
After all that exercise, the WTs wanted a snack. They love to sit at the kitchen table on the “big chairs”, which they are allowed to do from time to time. Since they were just having a snack, I sat each one in a chair with a cup of, well, goldfish. Each was grinning from ear to ear and seemed very content.
Micah began to scan the table and spotted a ziplock bag of cereal. He grabbed it and began to shake it. I wasn’t too concerned; the bag was sealed after all. Well, don’t you know, a well sealed bag is a lot like a balloon. If you squeeze it really hard, it pops. And when this bag popped, it rained cereal. This of course thrilled the WTs who instantly went to work spreading the cereal crumbs (the cereal became crumbs after all that shaking) as far and wide as they could. I sighed, closed the laptop, cleaned the spill, and sat down with a WT on each leg and read books. I can’t prove it, but that might have just been their plan all along.