What I've Learned in the past year...

Warning! The following represents Craftylilly not talking about yarn or beads. I've been doing that a lot lately, but it's about that time for my top 10-ish SAHM list. Read on to learn more... About a year ago, right after I delivered my daughter and quit work, I wrote a funny little top 10 list about all the things I'd learned from being a SAHM for the summer. I feel like I've learned so many more things a year later that I thought I'd do it again and share it on my blog as well! So here goes... 1) No matter how much time you leave yourself to get out the door, you will always be at least 5-10 minutes late because someone will need a diaper change, or refuse to put their shoes on, or you'll remember some last minute thing you need to get into the car before you go. 2) If you've got young children, some of your inside jokes will include lines from Spongebob Squarepants. You will also occasionally have conversations with your husband that will go something like this: "I actually like watching Spongebob." "Yeah, that show's pretty good. Jimmy Neutron's not bad either." 3) All movie watching will be done in the comfort of your own home, popcorn popped in the microwave. I haven't seen the inside of a movie theater in over a year. 4) The only thing more gross than cleaning a particularly smelly diaper, is cleaning up kid poop off of the ground because your kid didn't make it to the potty. 5) Since my son's started a coop preschool and also a special speech therapy preschool, his speech has greatly improved. I used to wonder about what he was thinking about and what he would say about a variety of situations and things. Now that I know, it's pretty much what I thought. It's all about food, superheroes, and how his sister should stop touching his toys. 6) My children's ability to make mischief has increased at the same rate as my loss of memory, grace, agility, and patience. 7) There's nothing cuter than seeing my children hug, or share, or play nicely together. These moments are fleeting, however. More than likely you will find the older one taking a toy from the younger one or bowling her over, or the younger one pulling on the older one's hair. 8) I haven't eaten an uninterrupted meal with the children in three years. As a corollary to that, I now eat my meals at the speed of light even when I'm not around the children. 9) I know myself well enough to know that having two children is managable, but three would make me insane. I bow down to those of you with more. I figure I can handle one child per hand. 10) Preschoolers like to repeat themselves a lot. Asking a preschooler not to repeat themselves will result in about 5 minutes of quiet. Your preschooler will then repeat themselves again, only in a whisper. 11) Nothing is more exhausting than 24 children from the ages of 3-5 in a classroom. I used to teach 5 classes of 30 teenagers a day, but all 150 of them didn't make me as tired as 24 preschoolers for 3 hours. Well there you have it! I've probably learned more, but it'll have to wait until next year.