A Mother's Dictionary

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am too.

Defense: What you'd better have around de yard if you're going to let the children play outside.

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

Full name: What you call your child when you're mad at him.

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

Look out: What it's too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

Preprared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

Sterilize: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.

Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can't quite reach anything.

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman jammies.

Two-minute warning: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

Verbal: Able to whine in words

Whodunit: None of the kids that live in your house.

Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into "get a sponge.

You find yourself humming the Barney song as you do the dishes.

You hear a baby cry in the grocery store, and you start to gently sway back and forth, back and forth. However, your children are at school!

You actually start to like the smell of strained carrots mixed with applesauce.

You weep through the scene in Dumbo when his mom is taken away, not to mention what Bambi does to you.

You get soooo into crafts you contemplate writing a book called 101 Fun Crafts to do with Dryer Lint and Eggshells.

You spend a half hour searching for your sunglasses only to have your teenager say, "Mom, why don't you wear the ones you pushed up on your head?"

You are out for a nice romantic meal with your husband, enjoying some real adult conversation, when suddenly you realize that you've reached over and started to cut up his steak!

1. "How on earth can you see the TV sitting so far back?"

2. "Yeah, I used to skip school a lot, too"

3. "Just leave all the lights on ... it makes the house look more cheery"

4. "Let me smell that shirt -- Yeah, it's good for another week"

5. "Go ahead and keep that stray dog, honey. I'll be glad to feed and walk him every day"

6. "Well, if Timmy's mom says it's OK, that's good enough for me."

7. "The curfew is just a general time to shoot for. It's not like I'm running a prison around here."

8. "I don't have a tissue with me ... just use your sleeve"

9. "Don't bother wearing a jacket - the wind-chill is bound to improve"

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