1. It is totally appropriate to have chocolate for breakfast. The more children you have, the more you can eat throughout the day. Chocolate keeps you sane, and lets be honest, it's better than drinking before noon.
2. Feeding your kid pizza for dinner is nutritious. It contains the 4 main food groups; grains (dough), veggies/fruits (tomato sauce), cheese (dairy), meat (pepperoni).
3. If it doesn't maim them it only makes them stronger. I am a firm believer in letting Dylan climb on the couch and tumble off the back. I will be right there to make sure that he doesn't break his neck, but I also know that if he gets scared enough he won't do it again. Although, with this tactic you run the risk of you child actually liking the activity and then you have a huge problem on your hands. But I am still a believer in letting them make mistakes and learn from them. Especially if it means you get to say I told you so. :)
4. Caffeine is essential to every mother's survival. Dylan has only been sleeping through the night for a couple of months now. And even once or twice a week he is up in the middle of the night. That means that for 15 straight months my child was up 2 to 4 times a night on average. This is not even counting the times he was up more than that due to sickness. If I didn't have a diet coke, or a cup of coffee before 7 am, there was no way that he or I were going to make it through the day.
5. Messes happen. I am not talking about toys here or there, dirty fingernails, food stuck to the side of their face that you apparently missed at lunch, or a spilled drink. I am talking about being completely covered in mulch from head to toe, including in their mouth. I am talking about dirt that is so embedded under their fingernails that a band saw and a soak in the tub is the only way to remove it. I am about about falling and scraping their knee, touching to boo boo and wiping it all over their new outfit. I am talking about sneezing and projectiling snot across the car into the backseat. I am talking about dipping their fry into the ketchup, licking it off and dipping again and being covered in sticky red goo by the end of the meal, and realizing that your child is not only covered, but in one meal has managed to consume only ketchup.
6. Sweatpants and a t-shirt are acceptable clothing options. Listen, I am all about trying to look cute and making myself presentable, but if Dylan and I are just going to go over to a friend's house to play, I am not going to put on my Sunday best. I am going to put on a pair of capris and a tank top and hope that I don't melt in the Tennessee heat. The rule is: as long is it is clean, it covers your butt and flabby tummy, and is easy to nurse in, you can wear it. And even the clean aspect is up for debate. Just scrape off the dried food from the day before. Or just do what I do, if someone comments on the food stuck to your shirt, exclaim "Oh my, that must have just happened at (insert most recent mealtime here), I just did laundry!"
7. Laundry is an inevitable evil that multiplies exponentially when you have kids. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away (trust me). Complaining about it doesn't work either. Here are some tips to help make laundry an easier task for you: a) wash a load a day (or more if you have multiple kids or if you use cloth diapers like me) b) leave the clean clothes in the dryer. This way, when your husband says that he has no clean underwear, you can make him sweat for just a minute and then tell him to go look in the dryer. You get to look like the hero without having to fold a thing. c) eventually you are going to have to fold the items, but if you followed point "b" above, you will have significantly less to fold. d) once you fold the items, make sure to leave them in the basket for a few days. This gives the allusion that you accomplished something without having to actually put everything away. e) and finally once you do put everything away after letting the clothes sit in the basket for days, you will have less to put away. Everyone wins.
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