The (slightly more realistic) Joys of Parenthood

After reading a recent post on BCC, I've come to the conclusion that - at least in the abstract - you have to find a way to love even what could be the most aggravating parts about parenting small children. (I'm not worrying about kids from about 9 or 10-18: that's an entirely different kettle of fish.)

So with that in mind, I have a list of my favourite misdemeanors and misdeeds that I've witness from other people's children...sometimes while I was the one in charge of them.

1. The wily 6-14-month-old who, with something of a Michael Scofield complex, consistently attempts to escape its parents clutches by crawling under the pews during church. These attempts invariably end with the child suddenly disappearing from view as they are pulled back by an an ankle to sit and fuss under their parents' watchful gaze.
2. A Sunday School class full of 5-year-olds who wouldn't sit still and listen to a lesson unless they were given time to "dance" to some guitar music before we talked about the fishes and the loaves. Of course, "dancing" meant imitating grand mal seizures, crawling under the chairs, and launching themselves from the windowsill into one another.
3. A particularly hilarious little girl who, after insisting that she was the baby bird and I was the mommy bird, informed me that as the mommy bird, I had huge "nickels". Needless to say, she enlightened me as to what she meant by pulling her top over her head and pointing. We were on a walk with several other families at the time.
4. The child who, as the sacrament was passed, kept begging loudly for another piece of bread because the first one had been too small and he was still hungry.
5. A 1-year-old in the supermarket wandering away from her parents to scoop up a few baguettes and toddle off with them. When the baguettes were returned to their display a box of lunch snacks, a jar of hot cocoa powder, and what in the end was a slightly squished bag of blueberry muffins had suffered the same fate.
6. The little girl who, at 10 months, finds that her favourite activity to keep quiet is the violent unpacking of everything in her diaper bag. Everything...from every container.
7. The sneaky defiance of a 3-year-old. After being told by her mother that no, she was not allowed to go wading in the water, waited until her mother's back was turned to slowly remove her shoes and stealthily slip off her stockings to make a slow progress towards the pond and her goal of wet feet.
8. My uncle's 4-year-old mind coming to the conclusion that across the kitchen his baby brother's head (my dad) was the perfect target at which to aim the hard plastic darts that fired from his toy gun. Needless to say, the babysitter did not approve of his high marksmanship.
9. My own little sister at age 3 or so taking a fist-full of crayons or markers and running around the house with them, held high over her head. The result was a very avant-garde chair rail along several of the walls that my mother did *not* appreciate in the least.

It makes me start to wonder what sorts of stories I'll be telling *my* children about their own antics later on in life.