Monday, October 17, 2011

Teleportation and other Myths Exposed

After almost eighteen years of marriage and thirteen years of motherhood, I have noticed that the males in my household believe certain myths.  Now I am not talking about area 51 here.  No, these are a bit closer to home.  So I feel the need to expose or "debunk" some of the untruths they hold so dear.  What?  Am I being unfair?  Well yes, but since they don't have blogs they cannot argue with my myths that I hold dear.  Such as all sweets and yummy food must be surrendered to the mom for a "toll fee" bite.  My favorite!

Myth #1.  Clothes hangers when empty will teleport themselves to the laundry room for the next use.  It is not just in closets that I find empty hangers.  Nope.  Why just today I located three renegade hangers on the Little People's bedroom floor.  Just lying there like plastic roadkill.  They have also been discovered under beds, in the bathroom and my personal favorite, buried under the formless Pottery Barn couch in the armpit of Hades playroom.

Myth #2.  Used washcloths also teleport themselves to the laundry room.  My boys are all responsible for bringing their dirty clothes to the laundry room and for putting up the clean clothes.  With constant nagging and harassment positive reinforcement they handle this chore with great enthusiasm.  Except for washcloths.  For some unknown reason they live in the bathtub only.  It is not unusual to spend the entire day catching up on laundry only to walk in the bathroom and find five or more wet washcloths in the back end of the bathtub.  Today they were even folded.  That's right.  Wet, folded and stacked.

Myth #3.  Socks reproduce.  Well at least I think that is the myth.  Why else would they be left all over the floor, and tucked under couch cushions,  in every room of the house if it were not for propagation of the species?  And then they are surprised when they run of of clean socks.  (Insert eye roll and motherly sigh here.)

Myth #4.  Opening the refrigerator multiple times will make the options better.  The Eldest can be a picky eater. I often see him going between the pantry, freezer and refrigerator up to five times each checking out the options.  This occurs only when the options are scarce or really healthy.  I have never noticed that behavior when there is cake, cookies or pie. 

Myth #5.  The more toys on the bed, the more restful the sleep.  Do your children do this?  It is not uncommon to hear loud thunks as darling husband and I are sleeping in front of the TV watching TV at night.  Years ago this would have caused me to jump up in a panic thinking a child was lying unconscious with a broken neck on the floor.  I have learned that it is the sound of large, often heavy toys getting kicked out of bed as they flop over in bed.  Who knew that large Nerf guns were not sleep friendly? 

Myth #6.  This is perhaps the most prevalent myth among young male children.  Evidently they believe that if you urinate inside of the toilet bowl the toilet will snap certain parts off and thereafter you will be forced to dress in pink and wear very large, sparkly bows in your hair.  And as a final offering to the toilet god the lid must be left in the up position.  If you have any ideas on how to debunk this myth I am all ears! 

So what are some of the favorite myths in your house?  I am sure there are some amazing ones out there.  Now if you will excuse me there is a toll fee in need of collecting.

2 comments:

Christy said...

I like #4. Opening the refrigerator multiple times hoping something new will materialize there.

A myth at our house is that the milk container will refill when there is only 1/4 cup of milk left in the plastic container. Hubby is a chemist, but has failed to solve this one so far.

Anonymous said...

What a great read. I'm totally entertained and only wish you were blogging when I was parenting two boys!

Carole Ann