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Melissa Sher

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12 Very Important Questions I'd Love Answered

Posted: 08/12/2012 10:00 am

1. If you drive a car with a "My Kid's An Honor Roll Student" bumper sticker, do you need to carry proof?

2. What is it about getting into bed that makes children so thirsty?

3. Have toy manufacturers ever been to a grocery store? Do they know that eggs get around just fine without being wired to their cartons?

4. Do you think the person who invented glitter later came to regret it?

5. Is there an official government position on when you should stop referring to yourself in the third person ("Give Mommy the spoon") to your children?

6. Does the new baby smell have an expiration date?

7. Why are sailor suits for baby boys such a big thing? Is it because they swam around in amniotic fluid for nine months?

8. You know that terrible, silent pause a baby or toddler makes after they get hurt but before they begin crying? Does that pause just become a lot of swearing (@#%#!!!) when we become adults?

9. Does the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that children limit screen time to under two hours a day have a clause for sick days, snow days or juicy celebrity scandals?

10. Do the people who say that the best cure for diaper rash is to let a baby run around without a diaper live in homes without carpets?

11. Why is it "don't make me count to three"? Why isn't it "four" or "five" so that we don't have to pause after "two" for such a long time?

12. If "in diapers" and "potty trained" are part of the popular lexicon, shouldn't there also be a pithy phrase to describe kids who can poop in the potty but need to be wiped by an adult?

(Some of these questions previously ran on the blog Mammalingo... but in Pig Latin.)

 

Follow Melissa Sher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mammalingo

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1. If you drive a car with a "My Kid's An Honor Roll Student" bumper sticker, do you need to carry proof? 2. What is it about getting into bed that makes children so thirsty? 3. Have toy manufactur...
1. If you drive a car with a "My Kid's An Honor Roll Student" bumper sticker, do you need to carry proof? 2. What is it about getting into bed that makes children so thirsty? 3. Have toy manufactur...
 
 
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04:00 PM on 08/15/2012
Re: #3 - eggs aren't purchased by picky children who want one that looks nice in the package.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dancerctry
I love Gardening and Decorating
12:51 PM on 08/15/2012
Answer 1: yes it's called pride
Answer 2: Ah, procrastination, then they wonder why bedtime is so early to begin with
Answer 3: Apparently not
Answer 4: Yup
Answer 5: I don't think the government cares but strangers probably have a reference of age 4
Answer 6: 3 months
Answer 7: Supposedly, they are cute. I think your kid is making a mental note to annoy you later
Answer 8: Yup
Answer 9: No they forget that Mommy's sanity is also important to her ability to care for the child well.
Answer 10: I did but no carpet. I can't speak for everyone else though. You can limit which rooms
Answer 11: I don't pause at 2. It's count of 3 and that's it. My 3yr son learned quickly I mean it.
Answer 12: Good point. I say we call them swippers
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
reelchick
yada, yada, yada....
11:22 AM on 08/15/2012
Nice Seinfeld approach on parenting questions.
11:41 PM on 08/14/2012
11. Why is it "don't make me count to three"? Why isn't it "four" or "five" so that we don't have to pause after "two" for such a long time?

My parents always counted to "five".
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11:36 AM on 08/15/2012
Wait, you pause?

My parents never paused! If I didn't do it by three I would regret it!
08:44 PM on 08/14/2012
referring to yourself in the third person is alway weird - parent, date, or workplace.
05:52 PM on 08/14/2012
# 8 yes....a definite yes
05:31 PM on 08/14/2012
#6 - age 3.
04:38 PM on 08/14/2012
i bet the person who invented glitter was not a mother...and if they were a mother, they had a very sparkley home.
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KiltsAreHot
I'm just here to establish an alibi.
11:41 AM on 08/15/2012
I saw something on Pinterest the other night about glitter. It's the herpes of the craft world. You never really get rid of it.
01:43 PM on 08/15/2012
lol the herpes of the craft world...thats good.
10:29 AM on 08/14/2012
1. Proof about the honor roll, or proof about the snotty stuck up parents?
2. It's just fun to make you go get it.
3. I guess not.
4. No, because she was a stripper, and liked the idea of ruining thousands of marriages.
5. Not a nanny state yet, no.
6. Grade school.
7. It used to be traditional for sailors to kidnap babies.
8. Yes.
9. Sick days = no limit, snow days = limit doubled, juicy scandals = you are a bad parent.
10. No, their precious perfect nature children run around all day outdoors in fields and play in brooks and feed the forest animals...
11. With any number greater than three, there is virtually no chance they will begin to move when you start at one.
12. "Mostly potty trained". As in, "My husband of fourteen years is mostly potty trained."
10:11 AM on 08/14/2012
Here is another funny blog post: Top Ten Things on my Mommy Wishlist:

http://dietcokedetox.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/top-ten-things-on-my-mommy-wish-list-3/
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ginadeoliveira2008
Seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of you
08:14 PM on 08/13/2012
The answers to # 10 and #12 are YES.
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Crisdean Wulver
We've got our priorities screwed up.
03:51 PM on 08/13/2012
Wall to wall carpet was always a bad idea.
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george martini
I wasn't always this introverted.
05:56 PM on 08/13/2012
Never allow your kids to play in traffic without body armor.
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Crisdean Wulver
We've got our priorities screwed up.
09:51 PM on 08/13/2012
You're weird.
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Crisdean Wulver
We've got our priorities screwed up.
03:47 PM on 08/13/2012
I think number 8 is due to shock. Little kids are wide open to perceptions. They're receptacles for high volume input. They're absorbing things at light speed. So when they experience something that surprising and that intense, I think it takes a moment before that experience overrides all the other input that's streaming into them.
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Crisdean Wulver
We've got our priorities screwed up.
03:42 PM on 08/13/2012
When I was a kid, bedtime seemed like an adventure to me. I don't know why. But it was always better of you had a flashlight and a comic book.
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george martini
I wasn't always this introverted.
05:59 PM on 08/13/2012
You were probably reading your Noam Chomsky book collection under the covers.
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Crisdean Wulver
We've got our priorities screwed up.
06:16 PM on 08/13/2012
When I was that age, nobody outside of MIT had ever heard of Chomsky. And most people at MIT had probably never heard of him either. He was born in 1928. He's a year younger than my mother.
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ginadeoliveira2008
Seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of you
08:16 PM on 08/13/2012
I had a flashlight and literature books. Not allowed to read after nine, but I managed. Always a late sleeper.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dil123
evangelicals are not christians
03:10 PM on 08/13/2012
7) Sailor suits are big for girls too. It just depends on how cute the mommy thinks they look in nautical. BTW, look for your child to hate the nautical look as an adult.
6)Baby smell goes away the first day of Pre-K. Or, according to if you feel you are lucky to have kids that play in the dirt, about the time you have to hose them down because you just can't let them in the house covered from head to toe in mud.
5)You never stop talking to your child in the third person. I just talked to my daughter in the third person over the weekend and she's 23 with a baby of her own. BTW, you will say "We go to Pre-K and we got an A on our test, until your child is at least in middle school.
4) The person who invented glitter should be tarred, feathered and hung from a tree. No one should have to clean up years old glitter from an apt. or a house while you are trying to move. As we all know it never comes up. The same should be said of Barbie shoes.
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Melissa Sher
blogger, Mammalingo
09:17 AM on 08/14/2012
It's the worst. I would take dried macaroni any day. At least when that falls off, I can find it and get rid of it. You're right. You can never get rid of glitter. Ever.