10 Things My Kids Have Totally Wrong

I’m just going to come right out and say it; kids are kind of dumb. It never ceases to amaze me how little tiny humans can be so intelligent and insightful and yet still so stupid. I mean, really; it’s kind of embarrassing. For example, my best friend/cousin-in-law and I walk each night around the track while our 7-year-olds are at cheer practice at the school. As I donned my workout gear and my cool mint and neon yellow Nikes the other night, my daughter looked at my shoes and then at her own turquoise, blue and neon yellow Nikes with the bold pink laces and said, “Mommy, look! Our shoes are twins!”

I raised my internal eyebrow and rolled my eyes on the inside and thought, “Good grief. The kid has no idea what a twin is and she’s the big sister of twins!  Good thing she’s so pretty,” before saying aloud, “Not quite, honey. Our shoes might have the same colors here and there, but they’re not twins because they don’t look exactly alike.” And then BOOM!

“Carter and Charlotte are twins and they don’t look anything alike,” she responded. Crap. My kid is smarter than I. How do you argue with that? Our 17-month-old boy/girl twins obviously don’t look much alike, yet they are twins. I’m reeling. Actually reeling at her level of intelligence on this one. And then she starts telling me that she hopes our cat – that we are pretty sure provided a nice dinner for coyotes about a week ago (well, he should have come inside and not run away from us for hours!) – is having a lot of fun at cat summer camp, which is where we told her he went when she noticed his absence (oh, don’t judge me. We honestly have no idea where the cat is, and we don’t want to tell her it’s dead and then it show up on the porch one morning, you know?).

Dumb.

Kids are cute, sometimes highly intelligent and sometimes not the brightest crayons in the box. But the good news for parents is that this means they’ll believe anything. Here are just a few of the things my kids have totally wrong.

I am not the meanest mommy in the world

True story. I might occasionally sound pretty mean, but I’m not. I mean, I can be. I have a temper and a bit of an attitude, and zero patience and most of the general public makes me insane in a way that I’m sure is going to send me to a psychiatrist’s office for some serious medication sooner rather than later…I’m not making myself sound very great, am I? Either way, if not allowing my kids to play in the middle of the street classifies me as the meanest mommy in the world, I’ll accept the title. But I just don’t think that it does.

I am not the best mommy in the world

I will never admit this to my kids, and I never want them to find out this is not the truth. I want them to think that I am the best mommy in the world. But, alas, I don’t do Pinterest projects with them and I don’t cook well, and a lot of their food is pretty  much store bought, unorganic (if that’s not already a word, I’m starting a trend) and not homemade from fresh ingredients farmed inside the gates of Heaven by Moses and his BFFs. Oops. I’m pretty mediocre, but I love them and I’d do anything for them, so that counts for something, right?

I do not want one more hug and kiss an hour after bedtime

Seriously, love hugs and kisses from my kids. And as they get older, they offer up fewer and fewer. But let’s be clear, when I put those little monsters to bed at 7:30 pm, it’s because I really do not want to see them at 8:30 pm because they just, “Know you need another hug and kiss because you miss me, mommy.” I do not miss you. If you’re in bed that early, it means mostly that you should thank your guardian angel you and your attitude made it through the day to even get to bed.

Adults are always correct

Pretty much 85% of my life is spent being incorrect about things my children ask me. But geez…do they have to ask so many questions I haven’t the answers to? Adults are so incorrect most of the time that I’m pretty sure that the statistic I just gave you isn’t even right.

The toothfairy didn’t have any change

The toothfairy doesn’t exist, and if you’d let us pull your tooth out when it was beyond loose two weeks ago, the ‘toothfairy’ wouldn’t have used his small bills on valet when he took mommy out for date night. He wouldn’t have assumed it would take another month for that thing to finally just fall out and give up.

The sun is not staying up late because it’s a bad boy that doesn’t listen to its mommy

I know that sometimes it’s still daylight when you go to bed. It’s called Daylight Savings Time, and mommy and daddy are just not all that interested in you staying up until after 9 pm and waiting for dark to go to bed. Mommy and daddy prefer it getting dark at 6 pm. So here’s the deal; you’re going to bed because no one wants to deal with your fussy attitude tomorrow from a late night and lack of sleep. We know you. We know you. So the sun is bad, not listening to his parents and he’s going to be in big trouble for staying up late. Big trouble.

Class field trips are awesome

They’re not. You have to be at school early, you get home late. I have to go with you since I’m not the kind of parent comfortable with strangers keeping an eye on you at a busy public location an hour from home. That means I’m now in charge of a half dozen irritating kids that aren’t even my own. Class field trips are not awesome.

The police will not arrest me if the kids aren’t quiet in the car

But you believe that all you want.

Daddy knows where he is going

He does not. And I’ve never felt so much pride in my heart when we dropped our daughter off at school for her first day of second grade earlier this week and she made the comment that she couldn’t remember where her new classroom is because it’s been “so long” since we took her to open house (three days…really?). When my husband began giving her directions and followed up with, “See? It’s easy, right?” she responded, “I’ll just ask one of the ladies that helps me out of the car to walk me to class, thanks,” I realized that she gets it. She actually gets it.

The Frozen DVD and all the Barbie DVDs are not broken

Other than the fact that I have the overwhelming urge to rip them all in half and toss them out the nearest window, they’re just fine. I’m just tired of listening to the same stupid songs over and over and over again in the car.

Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images