What the kids taught me...

Yesterday I posted about the things that my mama taught me about life. Today I’m going to mention a few things that I’ve learned from raising kids.

A three year old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a restaurant and they aren’t a bit shy about telling you what they have to do in the bathroom and how they need to hurry, hurry to get there.

If you hook a belt to the ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a forty pound boy wearing Superman underwear and a Batman cape made from a pillow case. It will however spin two kittens in the pillow case until they are very dizzy.

You should never throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on because if the ball makes contact with the ban, the glass window pane will not stop it. The local lumber yard does not give discounts on glass windows just because the ceiling fan helped the kid make a home run around the living room.

Brake fluid mixed with bleach and dish water soap makes smoke and lots of it. It takes the volunteer fire department three minutes to respond to smoke billowing out the garage door.

Certain Legos will pas through the digestive tract of a four year old. So will buttons and dimes.

When you hear the toilet flush followed by the words, “Uh-oh!” it’s already too late.

A king sized water bed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house about four inches deep. If the house is smaller, it can double as a wading pool.

Garbage bags do not make good parachutes or Batman capes. Put them under lock and key for at least two weeks after taking the children to the circus.

My friend advised me that no matter how much Jell-O the kids put into a swimming pool they can not walk on water and pool filters do not like Jell-O. I did not buy a pool when the children were growing up. It took all my time to find places to hide the brake fluid and plastic garbage bags.

You do not want to know what that smell is coming from the kitchen. Just yell down the hallway that whatever the teenagers are cooking, they will have to clean up the mess. It might help to check the latest hiding place for the brake fluid before you go back to reading your book. They could be doing more chemistry experiments rather than burning macaroni and cheese.

Play dough and microwave should never be used in the same sentence around children.

Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Those little plastic dish sets you buy for your daughter will melt in two minutes at 350 degrees. It will take five ours of work and sixteen tons of elbow grease to scrub one plate and saucer from the racks and the bottom of the oven.

The spin cycle on the washer does not make earth worms dizzy. They are able to crawl quite well after five minutes of spinning around in fast circles. Sometimes the agitator will pop their tails off, though.

A six year old boy can start a fire with a flint rock and/or a magnifying glass in less than five minutes. The volunteer fire department responds to blazes in the back yard in less than three minutes.

Super glue is forever. If a child sticks his finger in it and then touches your brand new Willie Nelson CD, you can’t scrape it off, melt it off or even cuss it off. Acetone will work but it tends to make Willie sound like a soprano.

Yes, they have taught me a lot but I’m so glad that they are all grown and are now learning from their own children.