This past weekend, I moved into Britt's house for a night. She and Jared went away all day Saturday and Sunday, and I stayed over to watch her kids. I was there for 31 hours, 56 minutes, and 44 seconds. A second more, and I may not have survived. However, I did learn some valuable lessons during my ordeal:
- Telling a four-year old who is playing quietly in her room that you need to make an important call for business and so she should just stay in her room until I'm done means that she will stand at her doorway sixty seconds later yelling at the top of her lungs, "ADAM AWE YOU OFF YOU' IMPO'TANT CALL YET?"
- When both children are playing nicely in their respective rooms, thinking that you have time to go to the bathroom in peace is a lost cause. Children have built-in radar that means they'll head right for the door and start banging on it to see what you're doing.
- Likewise, for a child, the best time to ask when they get to eat lunch is while you're trying to take a shower.
- No matter how protected you are, a determined child will always be able to hit you in the nuts.
- Breaking down and sobbing, "Oh God why won't you just go outside and leave me alone?" will only look like weakness, and children will take that moment to attack.
- "Playing outside" means standing at the front door, the garage door, or the porch door, screaming "CAN WE COME IN NOW?" for an hour.
- When a four-year old asks you why you're so fat, asking her why she's so ugly is not the best response.
- If you wash your hands every time a child touches them, rubs their head on them, or puts their feet on them, it will only take you an hour to go through an entire paper towel roll.
- The movie "Clueless" might have some concepts that are hard to explain to a nine-year old boy. Or, at the very least, awkward to watch with him sitting there.
- Trying to train a young child to call her mother by "Britt" instead of "Mommy" is impossible, but the same child has no problem repeating verbatim the names her brother called her.
- The most important lesson I learned: Vasectomies are cheap!
P.S. I found 10 more gray hairs this evening in the mirror.
