New Rules in My House

If you bring your kids to my house and they are not old enough to know better, please stop them from doing the following things:

1. Using my furniture as a jungle gym. It's clear that you think it's adorable when they somersault off of and stomp all over my sofa, whilst simultaneously flinging the cushions this way and that, but I don't. I promise not to laugh when your adorable moppet flips backward off of the chair.

2. Using my furniture as a ladder to my valuables. Yes, it's fun for you to watch your child scatter the potting soil from my plants all over my piano bench and floor, but if you aren't going offer to clean it up, I won't offer to have you come back to stay.

3. Running around my house with a drippy peach. I realize you a busy with your other child and don't have time to supervise your toddler's every move, but how 'bout giving the child a napkin and telling it to stay put while you attend to number two.

4. Taking my stuff (kitting projects, ornaments, child's art projects, cups, glasses, etc.) and wandering around the house with them until one falls on the floor and breaks. And should your child break something of mine (say a cherished art project of my child's) please don't make me feel like a shit when I take my stuff away from your little darling. "Can he/she at least still have the ______?", is NOT an appropriate response.

After you have arrived at my house and been presented with a room to stay in, a cupboard full of food, gifts for your two children, and a meal slaved over for two hours by yours truly, it's nice to reciprocate a little bit in kind. The next night when we go out to dinner, maybe offer to pick up the tab. A nice bottle of wine to sooth my shattered nerves would be another idea. Hell, maybe both! While you are here, please don't gripe that we have run out of the one cereal your child likes. God knows, we tried to anticipate every one of your needs, but apparently we fell a little short. Oh, and guess what..... I'm not so secretly laughing that your child managed to become intimate with the one pile of dog shit we missed in the yard we tried are damnedest to keep scrupulously clean.