Parenting lessons learned along the way

Contrary to appearances, I really haven't strayed too far from my original goal of writing on a regular basis.
True, I haven't had a post since the beginning of the month, but that doesn't mean the mind is empty or the motivation is lacking. It's just that sometimes, you go through a spell where you get so caught up in the daily grind, thoughts lose traction and the wheels just spin.
In the meantime, perhaps with the hope of attaching purpose to the day, I started to keep track of the many parenting lessons that reveal themselves at a random interval in the life of a child.
If it seems as though a lot of the entries are related to laundry ... well ... welcome to my world.

• Dirty laundry multiplies at twice the rate of clean laundry if you have two children — any more offspring and the accumulation rate ratchets up exponentially.
• Do not ever believe a child's promise to take care of an animal.
• The moment you finish cleaning the kitchen, a hungry child will appear and beg for a meal or snack.
• To a child, it is completely fair for a mother or father to tend to the needs of all and pick up after everyone, but wholly unfair for a child's scope of responsibility to extend beyond him or herself.
• Your children will surprise and disappoint you, bewilder and confound you, make you laugh and cry, but, overall, they will rise to and often exceed expectations.
• Until children are about 10 or 11 years old, parenting is mostly physical. After that, let the games begin.
• It is the rare child who plans ahead and makes a pre-emptive laundry strike. Most prefer to wait until the last possible minute, then retrieve a dirty piece of clothing that has been percolating in the stench at the bottom of the hamper and insist that all life will cease if the item is not washed, dried and ready for school in 7 minutes.
• If you give a child an excuse, he/she will use it. Likewise, given the opportunity, a child can rationalize or justify any behavior.
• Children need rules, limits and consequences, but typically do not want them.
• Babies and toddlers possess an innate instinct that sets off an alarm the moment you dare to take time for yourself, and then they realize that they need you instantly.
• Every child, regardless of ingredients, is different.
• Children of even the most loving, supportive and smart parents will screw up.
• From the moment you learn you are pregnant, you will worry about your child forever.
• Given the option, most children would prefer to live among piles of clean laundry rather than put clothes away.
• Sack lunches made with loving care will be left at home despite umpteen reminders to place them in backpacks.
• When you ask a child to produce an item such as a coat and he/she says it's in the bedroom, that often means the item is lost.
• The declaration of no homework on Friday afternoon will be replaced with panic about a forgotten assignment by Monday morning breakfast.
• No matter how bad the test grade, there are always others in the class who did worse, which many children think should soften the blow of the bad grade and put it in a better light.
• Some children, when threatened to put away laundry dammit, will put clean, folded clothes in the hamper and send them through the wash again.