Life Lessons

I've been told that mothers learn new things all the time. How to magically take pain away from a scraped knee, a new position to get a screaming baby to sleep, and so on. I, however, seem to be in the fast lane of 'things I wish someone would have warned me about.' For example, I learned this morning before 10 am that if you remember nothing else, remember a spare diaper. I also learned that children without fear who have incredible faith in themselves will try repeatedly to swim on their own... even if they are only 11 months old and still wobbly on dry land. By noon I learned that, no matter how hard one tries, if dealing with a strong willed child, sometimes, the best lesson is to just let them eat the day old pasta off the floor and realize for themselves that it tastes 'icky'. By three I learned why some children have "play" cloths and "nice" cloths. Also, that play cloths shouldn't be white, especially when you're living in red clay country. However, I did learn one thing from watching my mother with children younger than me: when spaghetti is served, strip them down, don't even bother with the bib. I, however, was never informed that I needed a bib for the moving Hoover (also known in this house as Lani) because what gets the child all dirty and disgusting, inevitably falls and the dog will look like she's just feasted in some live animal for all the red tomato juice on her face. Like I said, life lessons. All those of you out there who don't have kids feeding themselves yet, heed this advice: Get a cheap blow up swimming pool to put under their highchair!! I wish I had listened!