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How Not To Parent On Any Given Afternoon. Or Really Ever.

By Alex Iwashyna blogger at Late Enough

First, don’t decide to go to Staples to get organized because you read an article in Redbook which is the first real print article you’ve read in an entire year that discusses hiring a personal organizer and realize fifteen minutes into the search for personal binders and other NECESSARY accouterment that you haven’t eaten lunch. Decide you are going to die of hunger.  Also consider acting classes.

Next don’t tell your kids they’ll get a treat if they do GOOD LISTENING while you continue searching for tabs and post-it notes and get distracted by the CUTEST PINK DESK EVER.

Gather two children and two desk chairs and fifteen miscellaneous ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS and head towards the checkout counter.  Don’t ever say: Kids! Pick out your treats. Because you’ll keep thinking to yourself a bouncy ball or a ruler and be confronted with two giant lollipops.

Don’t acknowledge to your inner child how delicious the lollipops look.  Trying to remember that you are so hungry the eraser shaped like cheese also looks appetizing.  Don’t say: Yes. You can have two lollipops the length of your body.

Don’t give them the swirly lollipops in the car while you hit the drive-thru Arby’s that doesn’t have your favorite sandwich and instead has replaced everything with some version of the turkey sandwich.  You don’t like turkey.

Don’t drive home while eating around the turkey and daydreaming about your organized life.  Don’t glance at your children as you pull up to your home.

N enjoying her lollipop more than I had hoped

Don’t use words of encouragement to get your children to the bathroom while watching children pick up fuzzies, dirt and leaves on the way because they must touch the grass, rug and you multiple times before entering the bathroom.

Don’t think BATH PAINT WILL BE FUN after you FINALLY getting your children’s sticky bodies into the water.  Don’t try to sit down and peruse Twitter because you’ll hear: The poops touching me.

Don’t expect to remove paint-covered children from bath and not have yellow and green puddles all over the bathroom floor.  Don’t leave all your cleaning supplies downstairs except for five baby wipes and a can of Lysol that your four-year-old son insists HE CAN HANDLE.

Don’t say okay when your son wants to check out your make-up while you’re scrubbing the tub.

Don’t hand tubes of paint back over to your children to remake their master piece in a clean tub because you so callously cleaned it up while collecting your seventeen month old’s poop.

Don’t expect to have clean children after two baths in the span of an hour because they will pour the rest of the paint into the tub while you are trying to decide if washable paint really DOES come out of makeup or if you can live with yellow foundation.

Maybe I should get E the acting lessons since he's prepping for the sequel of The Shining

Don’t decide to reread The Shining, sit down to peruse Facebook or prank call your husband until he comes home to rescue you.

From yourself.

Alex Iwashyna blogs at Late Enough mostly about life, parenting, marriage, politics, zombies, culture, religion, and her inability to wake up in the morning and not hate everyone.  She also facilitates a parenting class called Nobody Told Me! (because OBVIOUSLY) and runs the web content for the Blogger Body Calendar. Feel free to find her on Facebook or the Twitter @L8enough.  But don’t call.  She’s NOT a phone person. 

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