10 Things I Learned This Week, Vol 34

You know how they say with each kid, laundry multiplies exponentially? Well, it turns out my weekly lessons do too. No way I can stick to five these days. (But I do reserve the right to on those weeks when my juices—and by juices I mean wine—aren’t flowing.)

Lesson #1: Apparently Big has moved on from the gem jar concept already. The other day he announced he has a new idea. A money jar. Each time he does something good, I can put money in it. And when it’s full, he can put it in his piggy bank. Little does he know, if they’d been more generous about giving me gems too, I might have even considered it.

Lesson #2: I should be spending more time crafting with Little. The other day when he found the glue sticks, he thought they were sunscreen and showed me how responsible he is by applying one all over his face. (Which happened to compliment the stamps he had all over his body…again.)

Lesson #3: While there are a lot of synonyms for “mom”, Little’s latest, “underwear”, is new to me. If he didn’t say it with such affection, I’d probably be insulted.

Lesson #4: Just when you think you’ve got your kids figured out, they throw you for a loop. Instead of calling his teachers inappropriate names (in class), Little’s been crying in their arms. Preschool is hard (on both of us!).

Lesson #5: If about 1/3 of your kids’ toys suddenly “disappear”, they probably won’t even notice (except for that one thing you leave on top of the trash can because you’re too delirious to think…oops). But they may notice some of their long-lost stuff is really fun when they can actually find it.

Lesson #6: When the kid’s video camera is one of the rediscovered favorites, be sure to lock the bathroom while taking a shower.

Lesson #7: Come kid #3, you realize there are a ton of baby accessories you really don’t need. Like hand sanitizer. The full four-month old container in our living room suggests that Pink is going to be the test case for whether over-sanitizing the boys’ environment is what led to all their allergies.

Lesson #8: It turns out there is such a thing as the minivan mosey. And you just can’t help but do it when you’re in the driver’s seat of that beauty. Even Lenny, who usually drives like a bat out of h-e-double-hockey-sticks, has caught himself driving the speed limit more than once recently. (I know!)

Lesson #9: Besides his insane skillful driving, one thing I count on Lenny for is celebrity gossip. So when I asked him the latest on the Marc Anthony/Jada Pinkett situation and he didn’t know, we were both horrified. But don’t worry, he (quite seriously) assured me he was going to “buckle down” and catch up on his Us Weekly pile.

Lesson #10: When your neighbor a few doors down invites you to a parenting event call Calm the Chaos, it’s time to shut the windows.

May you embrace the tears, discoveries and chaos that come your way this week. (And feel free to share them in the comments, of course.)