No More Wet-Oatmeal Kisses

I’ve been culling paper from the files in my house. The amount of stuff I’ve shoved into files for years is ridiculous. Anyhow, in my adventure I found the following piece by the late humorist, Erma Bombeck. I watched her recite it on TV back in the 1980s when my kids were too young to commit any of the offenses mentioned in the piece. By chance I had taped the show, which I can’t remember anymore, and rewound the VHS tape over and over until I transcribed all of it. I placed it in the Grandview Elementary PTA newsletter in the 1990s and hung it on the fridge to remind me that the trials and tribulations of parenthood would be over all too soon. It wasn’t foolproof, but it brought me back from insanity more than a few times. The version below is shorter than what you’ll find from an Internet search, but I like it best, because I watched her say the words and its brevity is so powerful. Get a tissue. . .

No More Wet-Oatmeal Kisses

The baby is teething, the children are fighting, your husband just called and said, “Eat dinner without me.”

One of these days you’ll explode and shout to the kids, “Why don’t you grow up and act your age,”–and they will. Or, “You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do and don’t slam the door,”–and they won’t.

You’ll prepare a perfect dinner with a cake with no finger faces in the icing and you’ll say, “Now, this is a meal for company,”–and you will eat it alone.

You’ll yell, “I want complete privacy on the phone. No screaming. Do you hear me?”–and no one will answer.

No more dandelion bouquets, no more wet knotted shoelaces, muddy boots, or rubber bands for ponytails. Imagine, a lipstick with a point!

No PTA meetings and silly school plays where your child is a tree. No car pools, blaring stereos, or forgotten lunch money. No more Christmas presents made of library paste and toothpicks. No more wet oatmeal kisses. No more scraped knees to kiss or sticky fingers to clean.

Only a voice asking,” Why don’t you grow up,”

And the silence echoes,–“I did.”