A Mother's Dictionary

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am too.

 

Defense: What you'd better have around de yard if you're going to let the children play outside.

 

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

 

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

 

Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster

 

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

 

Full name: What you call your child when you're mad at him.

 

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

 

Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

 

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

 

Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

 

Look out: What it's too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

 

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

 

Preprared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

 

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

 

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

 

Sterilize: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.

 

Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can't quite reach anything.

 

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

 

Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman jammies.

 

Two-minute warning: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

 

Verbal: Able to whine in words

 

Whodunit: None of the kids that live in your house.

 

Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into "get a sponge."

Tags: children child distance pacifier wearing still small should required storeroom