Oh, the stories I'll tell your kids
Sitting on the front porch one day
Your kids will be waiting
To hear what I have to say...
About:
The late night feedings.
The temper tantrums just because the sandwich was cut in a square instead of a triangle.
The shenanigans in kindergarten that almost resulted in serious counseling.
Getting the write ups about how you talk too much during class.
The detention slips you forged with my signature...and watching you try to erase it as your teacher and I watched.
With both of my kids growing up, currently, 19 and 10, my husband and I decided that we would start building a treasure chest of the current things they do and say. These are things that have a tendency to annoy, astonish, anger, humor, otherwise kid stuff that they don't understand how it affects us as parents.
When they are fully grown, married and have their own kids, that treasure box will be ripped open to provide wisdom, nuggets of wisdom to their offspring. This will, hopefully, give their kids ideas (or weapons, depends on the context being used) on how to crawl right underneath their skin.
Here are the first 10 annoyances nuggets that have earned the right to go into the treasure chest, things my husband and I will say to our kids' kids:
1. Make sure you drink glass after glass of water right before bed.
2. Be sure to wake up at 6:30 am on Saturday mornings, bam on your parent's door like you're the police, requesting companionship. (On one occasion, my daughter even slipped us a note underneath our bedroom door, letting us know that she was hungry).
3. No matter how exhausted your mom looks, she absolutely loves how you bounce off the walls at bedtime. She musters up enough energy to read you a story most nights, so having you hide behind doors, your bed, underneath your bed and walking on her heels to follow her around, yeah, she LOVES all of that at 9 pm on a school night.
4. Blame your mom when you leave your book for your book report at school. Oh yeah, especially when it's due the next day. (I recall my daughter's words as being"what did you do with my book?")
5. Yeah, go spend the weekend at a music festival, and forget to call your job to see when you're scheduled to work again. Schedules are posted on Fridays, so be sure to wait until Monday to call for the schedule. My son decided to call for his schedule, he was met with an abrupt "you're supposed to be here right now", then CLICK.
6. Your mom especially likes it when you wake up on a school morning, decide you want to wear something different other than what she has already ironed for you. (I have a feeling this one's gonna get more interesting as she grows older. Which will probably result in many blog posts.)
7. Yes, your dad likes it when you rinse the dishes without actually washing them. I think the food residue from yesterday's dinner will add a certain flair to tonight's dinner. (A tremendous pet peeve of mine. I cannot wait to visit his place over the next few years to see what that looks like.)
8. Your dad absolutely loves that he spent $500 on a laptop that you allowed someone else to step on and crack the screen. Yes, pumpkin, he also likes the fact that you cracked your iPhone screen (or whatever Apple's making in the future) a few weeks after you got it. Yeah, he's big on pouring money down the drain to satisfy your electronic needs.
9. Yes, you should wait until the last minute to sit for your senior pics. I know, they sent you notice back in July. It's now September and the deadline is the first week of October. So what that everybody else waited too and the studio is over booked! No, the crowded portrait studio won't bother him.
10. Your mom loves nothing more than watching the same episode of your Disney shows over and over and over and over...
Moms with littles, your day is coming! Start compiling your list now so that you can create your own treasure chest of stories to tell your grandkids.
Our treasure chest is bursting already with stories to tell the grandkids one day, we're not in a hurry.
The beauty of all of this is that we can then send those kids, armed with the above nuggets of wisdom, home with their parents. At that moment, the Hubs and I will have our reward.
Bwahahaha!!!
What tales will you store up about your kids during this stage of growing up?