Life Lessons… from my son.
Current mood: quixotic
Category: Life

(this is an old post from my Myspace days, about 13 years ago…. I thought I’d re-share it here since myspace is basically defunct these days.)

Over the years, I’ve learned quite a few interesting things from my children, but my son – The Amazing Brat Boy – has taught me more about life than you can imagine. Next month, he will be 13 years old, and in the last 13 years, I have aged more than the previous 24 years of my life could have ever aged me.

I’m 36 for those who can’t do the math – don’t worry, I’m not good at math either. For example, my son has taught me that 1+1 doesn’t always equal 2. Let me give you an example:

1 six-year-old little boy
+ 1 nerf ball on the roof of the house
____
1 trip to the emergency room

Coincidentally, the equation also works this way:

1 six-year-old little boy
+ 1 trip to the emergency room
___
$786.42

See? Told ya!

Math means nothing in the life of a little boy.

Below are just a few of the life lessons I’ve learned from my son:

1. Never place an 18-month old anywhere near the open bottle of tabasco sauce on the table.

2. Six-year-old boys, regardless of how many times they watch Peter Pan, cannot really fly.

3. Ten-year-old little boys really can hold their breath until they turn blue.

4. When the house is really quiet, one of two things is going on 1) the boy is not home 2) the boy is doing something he shouldn’t be. Lesson: Silence is not golden – it’s dangerous!

5. Brat Boy’s law says: Anything embarrassing that a young boy can say in mixed company while his mother is trying to impress someone, he will say, and at the worst possible moment, in front of the most potentially embarrassing person in the room.

6. Children can and usually will repeat anything, especially the one thing you wished they wouldn’t.

7. The more you remind them NOT to repeat something, the more likely they are to repeat it, and again, at the worst possible moment.

8. Children wander; parents follow. Parents wander; law enforcement tracks them down and forces them to come back home.

9. The cleanliness of the living room is in direct proportion to how recently you cleaned it. That is, the more recently you cleaned it, the more likely it is the boy child will come along behind you and mess it up.
(The best argument for not cleaning the house I’ve ever heard.)

10. The number of dishes used in a day will far outweigh the number of times the boy child eats.

11. Out of sight, out of mind – this really means that when the boy child is out of your sight, he’s probably doing something that, when you discover it, is going to drive you out of your mind.

12. Peanut butter sticks to everything except bread.

13. Jelly, on the other hand, just sticks to everything – and the red varieties stain nicely.

14. Never leave your toothbrush unattended – you’d be surprised the uses a boy child can find for it before he puts it back in the holder, waiting for the unsuspecting to use it afterward. You really don’t want the details on this one.

15. Mascara makes a great wall decoration.

16. So does lipstick.

17. Pantyhose are fun to play with, especially when it’s your mother’s last pair and she has to be in court for work that morning.

18. Even though two grown adults cannot get a roaring fire started in the fireplace when they want to start one, little boys can almost burn down an entire kitchen with nothing more than a piece of bread and a toaster oven, or burn down a living room with nothing more than a fireplace lighter and a box of business papers that belong to a client.

19. Even though a vacuum cleaner doesn’t always pick up the little pieces of lint or paper on the floor when you use it, it can suck up an entire sock, pair of underwear, or innocently wandering kitten when a young boy uses it.

20. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to block things on the child’s computer, somehow, 12-year-old boys can and will find pornography on the internet faster and easier than a grown man who is looking for it will.

21. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from having a son is that you should always keep your child’s health insurance premium current and the cards easily accessible.

Next month, my son will officially be a teenager – 13 years old – and I’ve learned a lot from him over the years. These are just some of the small things I’ve learned. I’ve also learned how to pull my hair out, how to scream internally without making any noise, how to laugh when I feel like crying, how to grit my teeth and still talk, and how painful biting my tongue can really be.

But more than that, I’ve learned how to love so deeply from having a pre-teen son. There is nothing like having a pre-teen boy in your home to teach the value of unconditional parental love.

So tell me, my friends, what lessons have you learned from your children?

I’m about to get busy writing this morning… but I can’t wait to hear what you guys have learned from kids – so leave me a comment!

Love and stuff,
Michy