Parenting Truths

Over the last few years of raising my boys I've learned that Murphy’s Law rings particularly true for parents. In fact, parenting has turned me into a borderline lunatic who irrationally fears that flushing a toilet on the other side of the house will wake my sleeping children. I swear that you could run a jackhammer outside the kids’ window and they won’t even bat an eye, but if you sneeze on the opposite side of the house, they will most certainly wake up. Children DEFY ALL LOGIC. And with this in mind I decided that Murphy’s Law needed an addendum for parenting.

Some parenting truths based on Murphy’s Law of Parenting.

• If you absolutely cannot be late, a child will urgently need to poop the minute everyone is buckled in the car.
• If you skip any portion of the bedtime routine or attempt to rush it in any way, the process will take 3x longer than usual.
• If you score an uninterrupted shower, whatever kept the children from harassing you will be extremely messy and you will emerge from the cleanup as if you hadn’t showered in days.
• If you attempt to take a nap when the children are napping, some idiot will ring the doorbell and they won’t even be selling Girl Scout Cookies. If you’re lucky, the dog will bark and wake up the whole house.
• If you put up a gigantic neon NO SOLICITING sign that’s visible from space, someone will knock on your door anyway. They won’t be selling Girl Scout Cookies either.
• If you are out of milk, toilet paper and bread, a child will wake up vomiting at 3am and thwart any attempts to go to the grocery store.
• If someone compliments you on your well-behaved children, they will act like turds until they wipe the smug off your face.
• If you schedule a date night two weeks in advance, one child will have a fever of 101.4 and the other will decide that bedtime no longer applies to him.
• The phrase “getting lucky” will mean that bedtime took less than two hours and you can go to bed early.
• If you have 4 hours before you need to leave for the zoo, three hours will be spent drinking coffee and lollygagging on the internet, and the last hour will be spent as a crazed headless chicken searching for a left shoe.

Am I alone in this? Or do the most ridiculous things happen to other parents too? Share your parenting truths in the comments!