For Parents: The Child Owner's Manual

This holiday season, my children and I may end up visiting my mother. My poor, hopeless mother who has raised two children of her own but has not dealt with toddlers since I was three years old. In any event I am not on said premises of my mother's land, I have left an owner's manual for her review:

1) Potty time. When you wake up at night to go to the restroom, drag toddler number one with you. You kind of have to shake him a bit to make him wake up. I have at many times resorted to turning him upside down, waving candy bars in front of his nose, stripping him completely naked and putting him in front of the air conditioning vents, etc....all just to wake him so he can "pee pee" in the toilet instead of his bed. If you don't follow this advice, you'll end with more fluid in the bed than a washing machine on heavy load;

2) Do not read toddler number one more than two books before bedtime. He may then assume you have lost the controller to the parental playstation that he has just found. A toddler in power equals time out for an hour. By then you may be forced to read Blue's First Birthday or Bear and the Big Blue House repeateadly until your ears explode;

3) Never, EVER leave toddler number two alone with the Cheetos. He will inhale that shit faster than you can say colon blow;

4) Make that when toddler number two awakes in the morning he is changed, fed, bathed and bottled. There is only one catch to this rule: it has to be done simultaneously. If not, he'll inflict his baby banshee screams upon you until you lock yourself in a dungeon never to return, or until he gets all the above things taken care of;

5) Never under any circumstances is toddler number two allowed to play his father's adult video games such as Socom3 or Recon. That accidentally happened once...and toddler number two proceeded to attend preschool the next morning to tell his teacher that he felt like "shooting someone";

6) Toddler number two should only be allowed to eat poptarts in his highchair. Otherwise he has been known to have poptart in his hair, inbetween his toes, in his nose, in his ears and in his diaper.

And don't forget to sing Twinkle Twinkle little star to both babies before bedtime. Toddler number one has to have a glass of water by his bed at night or he screams like there's a drought. Toddler number two has to be rocked but only for two minutes. Any less than that, he screams bloody murder...and more than that, he is going to bed with YOU because he cannot be pried from your arms after being rocked to sleep.

Enjoy!