A few things I have learned...

1. Your friends ALWAYS laugh at you
2. Your kids ALWAYS find some inexplicable way to tear up EVERYTHING
3. Breakable things should NOT be anywhere your husband goes
4. Your kids HEAR everything, even when you mutter it unintelligibly under your breath
5. When the phone rings it becomes a magnet for noise and questions and fights among kids.

Now what do I mean by these? Well just this, no matter how much you are steaming at your kids, or how long it takes you to clean up that mess, (take for example the painting the twins did,) your friends can laugh harder and longer at your misery. Now the painting thing STILL is NOT funny guys! Did I mention they got the kitchen window, dishwasher and cabinets?

Tearing up everything, I have come to the conclusion, is a fine art practiced by kids around the globe. They must have some way of telepathically communicating to each other the exact ways to break each and every child proof lock, toy, or game you get for them. For example, we had to duct tape our freezer closed because the kids kept breaking into the lock and removing things. And yes, if meat is taken from the freezer and hidden in the bedroom closet it DOES smell like a dead mouse after a few days.

My husband must have some magnetic force that draws breakable things from their hiding places. I mean, all women have decorative things in their home, like candles in glass jars, or a pretty glass trinket. Yeah, my hubby could break things in protective boxes just by looking at it. Take the BEAUTIFUL tart warmer I bought at Yankee Candle Co. It was specifically bought for the new house. It won't be there though, because it was broken into two pieces while sitting AT THE VERY BACK OF THE BATHROOM SINK, by my dear hubby. How did he do this you ask? Well only God really knows, but he told me it wasn't his fault and that breakable things shouldn't be just lying around. O.K. Can anyone give me a purpose for decorative things other than to be decorative???

Now I can scream at the top of my lungs at the boys to settle down, to come to me, to stop torturing the pets, and they don't hear me. But you mumble something, or listen to a song with questionable lyrics or an audiobook with above children level content and they start making that their new phrase. For instance I was listening to an audiobook a few weeks back and their was a phrase about a woman's new boyfriend. Yep, My oldest starting hollering about Mom's new boyfriend the very next phone conversation I was on. Thankfully it was to my hubby who knows better so no real harm was done, but imagine if we were out in public with friends, or with extended family who don't know me so well? Of course if I had tried to get them to say something cute, they would not hear me speak. It is just the tiny infinitesimal things they always pick up on.

Phones and kids magically are attracted to each other I have decided. When a phone is left lying around, kids will find it and call China. This is a given, and depending on how many minutes your cell phone uses, they will leave it connected, lying somewhere like under the refrigerator that you can't get to, or find for lets say three days?!? These days phones are like little laptops, you can connect to the Internet, for a charge, of course. I can't figure out how to do it, but my 4 year old? He can do it no 3 seconds flat. He can't show ME how to do it, but give him a chance and he'll be downloading something, again, for a charge of course.

How these things all interconnect I'm still unsure, but I know that there is a connection somehow to these events. Becoming a wife and Mother has brought me so much joy, wonder and amazement, and also so much knowledge of things I never knew existed. I can't help but be amazed each day at the new things my hubby and kids get into and teach me!