There are certain unspoken rules in my house. For example, if one of my children is going to wake me up in the middle of the night, they will send a telepathic message to the other one to rise no later than 530 AM. It never fails. On the bright side, #teamwork?  But on the not so bright side is ME. As the one and only night owl in the house, the early morning rise and shine game is pretty much my least favorite game ever (even behind monopoly).

What’s really interesting is that these “rules” all seem to be in line to drive me and only me completely nuts.  The mister is an early riser by nature. While neither of us love a 530 AM wakeup call, he’s already 8+ hours deep of sleep in.  Me on the other hand, I’m usually trying to force my brain to shut down well past the midnight hour so 530 is an exceptionally painful hour to have to try to function. One day I hope my children will learn the truth behind the adage, “if momma ain’t happy, then no one’s gonna be happy.”

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There are many other “rules” I’ve come to accept, for example,  if I am in public with the kids by myself then they both will want ALL of my attention for each and every second of the trip. BUT if in public with me AND my husband they will be #teamdad and treat me like I am their Disney level evil stepmother most certainly plotting to ruin their lives if I even so much as glance in their direction. When it comes to public outings the rule is that I’m the sad little fourth wheel on the tricycle that is my family. (It’s not like I birthed 2/3rds of them or anything….)

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There is also the general rule that they will save all their cringe worthy verbal diarrhea for mom only to witness. Ask me how fun it is when your child walks up to a perfect stranger to tell them that they have a “fat belly” and just how fast I can melt in embarrassment and apologize while also mental noting that I need to stop using terms like “fat” as endearment if I expect my kid to not throw them out like they are NBD in the real world. “Look at that fat belly” would be a compliment in my house with 2 kids barely making a mark on the weight charts! My bad!

And then there is my personal (sarcasm font) favorite – the one rule that has proven more and more true every year I go farther into this parenthood gig.  A rule that was recently proven to once again be only aimed at the matriarch of the family.  The “rule of the traveling husband.”  When the mister goes out of town it’s a bonafide tried and true guarantee that all hell will break loose. Sick kids, allergic reactions, a leaking roof, dog peeing on the couch, a broken water heater – all true examples, all part of a greater and total complete mayhem and chaos from the moment his flight takes off until the second he reenters the home (and finds me lying in a fetal position with a bottle of wine and a long long straw).   When the husband goes on travel he gets text messages like this:

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And yet when I go away on travel I get text messages like this:

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They are taunting me, right?  Perfect little angels for 4 entire days for their dad and I can’t get more than a 20 minute span of time between having to reset my, “It has been “x” many minutes since our last injury/fight/tantrum/complete mom meltdown counter.

I can’t count how  many times my kids have made me out to be a liar liar mom jeans on fire by being angels for their dad in situations I promise him are nothing but hell for me – but the track record continues to show that this special level of mayhem is reserved specifically for dear ol’ mom.

They are lucky that they are so cute.