Humor Keeps Us Sane

A friend with four kids wisely told me early in my parenting career, "I can either take a picture of it [the mess her kids had just created], or I can start crying." Though I am often tempted to cry over the creative messes my kids make, I try to remember her wisdom: I can either laugh or cry. Makes a world of difference in my response to their behavior.

So, I'm taking a snapshot of a scene at Office Max from a few weeks ago. Crowded with back-to-school shoppers, the store was bustling. I popped the baby in the cart and had the three- and five-year-olds on and off the cart, taking rides, grabbing brightly colored pens, boxes, everything they saw, and begging, "Please can we get this...?" No, we don't need this. No, we don't need that. Put it on your wish list.

The whole quest was to find highlighters so we could practice handwriting at home. My kids' teachers write with a highlighter and let the kids trace with their pencils; I thought, great idea. When we got to the crowded highlighter section, weaving our cart through the masses, my five-year-old suddenly shouts, "I need to go poop!"

My eyes bulged as I scanned the crowd and shushed him. "What?" he says, "I need to go." I grab highlighters and race to the front of the store to stand in line. Once there, the pooper immediately lapses into make-believe as he spots a small fridge stocked with drinks. Looking at my three-year-old, he says, "Do you want to play like I'm the drink man?" She does, of course, and I hear him telling her he even has beer for her! I look at the check-out guy in horror as he stifles a grin, and I start to hand him our stuff. But then I have to keep holding the items while he scans them because almost all our supplies are covered in slobber. Slobbering had been the baby's activity so as not to get restless while shopping. I kept handing him items to chew on.

Finally we escaped with our slobbered-on highlighters, our drink man who serves beer to a three-year-old, and our pooper.

A day in the life. If we didn't laugh, we'd scream!