New Rules

Attention, kids:

There will be a few new rules in effect until I finish reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

1.) If you get hungry, there are 80 boxes of Cheerios in the storage room and taco soup in the fridge.

2.) I may not look like I'm paying attention, but you still have to practice. It can be atonal and in 5/4 time. Whatever. You sound great.

3.) Yes, you can have a friend over IF a) the friend doesn't talk to me, b) she prevents you from talking to me and c) she knows where the popsicles are and how to break one in half.

4.) Yes, you can watch a show. Yes, you can have a snack. Yes, you can turn on the hose. No, wait. I don't want my book to get wet.

5.) If you are not at school, you will have to go with me to the park. While there, I will be unable to push your swing, grab the zinger for you or catch you at the bottom of the slide.

6.) There is food and water on the picnic blanket and band-aids in the glove box. If it starts to rain or hail, go under the slide and wait.

7.) If you are hurt and you think something is broken, find a nice mommy and tell her. Do you remember Daddy's phone number?

8.) If it gets dark and you are unable to get my attention, make a nice, soft bed in the bark. You're always complaining that we never go camping, right?

9.) When I'm driving, yell if the car in front of us starts to slow down.

10.) If I start to have paranoid delusions that an alien life form is inhabiting my body, call 911.

11.) These new rules should only last a couple of days. Then I'll be back and you will have clean clothes to wear. But you won't be able to build beaver dams in the creek and forts in the poison ivy anymore. All good things must come to an end.