Auguries of Motherhood

Auguries of Motherhood*

To see the World in a Cheerio
And Heaven in a sticky hand
To hold tomorrow in your arms
As you brush away the sand.

Your hair goes gray

Time wrinkles your skin

A small price to pay

For their laughter and grins.
 

Oh Dishes! Laundry! My eternal foes!
But tiny fingers and tiny toes
Brush my cheek and tickle my nose 
A fair recompense for the messes and woes.

On muddy feet, behind a smile
Traveling every treacherous mile,
My heart now walks about the earth

A strange effect of childbirth.

On the altar you place your blood, sweat, and tears

A fresh tribute is demanded year after year,
But still you give and give some more.
To those tiny gods that you adore.

The paradox of Motherhood is this
It will leave you bleary-eyed and sore,
It will take every ounce of your heart and wits
But somehow give you so much more.

*apologies to William Blake

13 Ways to Remove Tree Sap From a Toddler

Listed in order of effectiveness:

1. Alcohol-based Hand Sanitizer
2. Nail Polish Remover
3. Crisco
4. Dish soap
5. Scrub with a nail brush
6. Scrub with steel wool
7. Find a shred of hard sharp plastic, scrape.
8. Find a two by four and scrape hand along the edge, try not to embed any splinters on the way.
9. Wonder aloud how your child got themselves covered in tree sap. Decide to go to the source and stop the problem before it starts again.
10. Find a giant blob of tree sap under the half-finished garage that has taken your contractor 4 months to begin framing. Tell your toddlers not to touch the tree sap.
11. Walk three steps away from the pile of sap to pick up several rusty nails in close proximity to your toddlers' feet. Turn back around 2 seconds later to find both toddlers covered in more sap. Do not curse out loud, this is important, they can hear you and will repeat whatever you say the next time your mother-in-law comes over. Deliver all toddlers to a warm bath and hand them an entire bottle of baby shampoo. Let them go to town with the bubble bath and hope the sap just goes away.
12. Compose an acerbic, witty, eloquent text of pure fury to your contractor for turning your back yard into a dust-bowl full of trip-hazards, sticky nightmares and tetanus-shots-waiting-to-happen, for months and months with no end in sight. Take a deep breath. Delete the text. Write another text that is positive, polite, patient, and full of understanding and kindly ask when he might be ready to proceed with the project. Please?
13. Move.

**This post is intended to be humorous, please do not try options 6-13 at home.**