Continuing my trips this week down memory lane, I came across the following incidents memorialized in e-mails. These incidents were really funny and just the kind of adventure that pops up for a working mom when she least expects it!
Kayla, age 5
- Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
One day, driving home from work and school when Kayla was 5 (she rode with me for about an hour each way that year to go to a pre-school near where I worked), she and I had the following conversation:
Kayla: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Mom ( promptly): To get to the other side.
Kayla: No, to go play in the mud.
Kayla: Why did the pig cross the road?
Mom: To go play in the mud?
Kayla: No, because his mother was calling him.
Kayla: Why did the turkey cross the road?
Mom: I don’t know.
Kayla: Yes, you do.
Mom: To get to the other side?
Kayla (proud to have gotten another one over on Mom): No, to go play with his friends.
Kayla: Why did the horse cross the road?
Mom (firmly): I don’t know.
Kayla: To go eat.
Mom: That’s nice.
Kayla: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Mom: To go play in the mud.
Kayla: No, to go get dressed……
And so it went!
- A Friend in the Bathtub
Woof, around age 13
About a month before that, due to a mishap in the kitchen one evening, I had to mop the floor, so I popped Kayla into the bathtub to take her bath while I did it. Kayla was just at the age where she could take a bath without me being in the bathroom with her, but I would leave the door open to be sure I could hear noise from the bathroom.
I heard her calling Woof (our oldest dog then; our only other dog at that time was Tyra) over and over, but didn’t think anything about it until after a while Kayla called for me to come in – “Mom, you have to see this!” (Never a good sign!). Upon entering the bathroom, I discovered a tub containing one (very unhappy) 13 year old dog and one (ecstatic) five year old daughter, who explained to me that she wanted Woof in the tub with her because she “wanted a friend with her while she took her bath.” I removed the dog from the tub, dried the dog, removed the child from the tub but did not dry her, cleaned the tub, re-ran the water, popped the child back in the tub (with strict instructions that the dog was NOT to be pulled back in again), cleaned up the copious amounts of water on the floor from the dog and child removal (hey, at least I had the mop out already, right:?), and went back into the den (making sure both dogs were with me – this wasn’t a problem, as Woof was walking very near to me, close to a nervous breakdown) and laughed silently until Mark got home and I could tell him.
Have a great day everyone!
Tales from the Mom-Side 