Over the last several weeks this site has been devoted to rather deep articles on nutrition, gardening, things to do with dad, and being overly loyal to your son. This week, let’s lighten the mood up a bit. When you lean over your kitchen sink at the end of the day and ask yourself, “Why me?”, rest assure that it isn’t just you. We as mothers might think that but we are all in this together!

These are just a few things that have happened to my children and neighborhood children.

• When a boy wants to see what a black enamel spray paint can do when you try to chop in half with an axe, remember there is nothing that is going to get those polka dots off of his eye lids. Do not attempt it as anything that strong will blind him. He will just have to look like a leopard for awhile.

• Remind your son when he is riding a homemade go cart and it has been raining, that when you come down from the road, wet grass does not allow you to steer. The three foot cement wall in your neighbor’s yard is head height. Hopefully he will laugh about this when he regains consciousness.

• Remind your teenage sons that when they put heavy duty plastic lining in their buddy’s pickup truck to make a redneck swimming pool and then drive around in it, be careful. Remind his buddy to close the back window of the cab before he breaks real hard or a big wave hits the front seat.

• Remind your sons that when they are in the bedroom wrestling that not all walls are cement block. When you do head butt into the wall, the sheetrock will crumble.

• Remind your children that when anyone passes gas or burps at the table it is not their duty to make their’s louder.

• Remind your sons that what goes around comes around. The grasshopper you put in the ice cream sandwich and gave to the neighbor for a treat was not very nice. Especially when the first bite took his head off!

• Don’t be alarmed if your son is doing an experiment with dry ice and water bottles. They make a nice little explosion. However, warn him against putting a big chunk in a 2 liter bottle and tossing it in to the pool. It will shoot up 20’ in the air and put a hole through your pool room screen. (That was an expensive lesson!)

• When your son is younger and he wants to do experiments, remember to separate chemicals in the tool shed. The combination of rose fertilizer and chlorine shock is very toxic and explosive. VERY explosive.

• Tell your son that he is not allowed to play basketball the day after he twisted his ankle. The result of this mishap was a trip to the emergency room, a cast, and a set of crutches.

• During the summer and you are at work but your sons are old enough to be at home by themselves, remind them of the rules of the house. If they should get mad at each other, save it until you get home to hash out the problem. Do not under any circumstances chase your brother around the yard with a lead pipe. Result – we transported the neighbor’s child to the ER for eight stitches.

• Make sure that your son knows that the potatoes in the pantry are for dinner tonight. Otherwise you will come home to a yard full of quartered potatoes fired by a homemade potato gun that they whipped up with some pvc, a grill igniter, and a can of hair spray. And yes, really, it shoots potatoes.

• Never tell your child to clean his second floor room when angry. Coming home one night from playing bingo with my friend, we came upon her house, her front yard littered with belongings. He had opened up the window and shot everything out the 2nd story window.

• Never let your son paint your nails with car touch up paint.

• When your son first joins little league soccer and his team mate tries to get the ball away from another player and your son gets kicked in the leg. It’s ok. When your son chases his team mate down to the opposite end of the field for retribution, let the coach handle it.

• In little league football when your son has something illegal done to him on the field, do not stand up and yell for him to do the same thing back to the other player. (Just a note, your husband is going to disagree with me on this one!)

• Remind your sons AND your husband that when the T.V. has just announced there is a tornado warning in your area, this is not the time to go missing to try and see if you can find it. (This might be another one your husband will disagree with me about as well.)

I could go on and on but I don’t want any of this to frighten you too much. And yes our boys were supervised, and yes they were raised well. But as you well know, you cannot chain a boy around your ankle 24 hours a day. When you have had one of “those” days, take a peek at them when they are sleeping. They are still beautiful, they are still great children, and they are still yours.

Be Blessed