Zoo Rules

Whereas Murphy’s Law might say “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong,” Monkeys’ Laws say…

1. If your daughter spent the first 2 years of her life screaming and hollering during every bath she ever got (beginning at the first sight of water and ending only when water was completely out of sight), the mystery switch in her little toddler brain will instantly flip, and she will begin crying because she wants to take a bath… and then cry some more when her shower is done. But at the same time, she will most definitely fall to the floor in a tantrum and shriek if she sees a washrag after mealtime.
   
2. If you have a brand-new bag of goldfish in your daughter’s backpack, your son will undoubtedly get it out and open it and proudly say, “Look at this, Ma”… ten minutes before you are headed out the door to drop your daughter off at school with her now-compromised kindergarten class snacks.
   
3. If you are at the grocery store, your baby will not stay awake for the three minutes it takes to walk out of the store and to the car, but will instead fall asleep as you are leaving the check-out line… thus ensuring that the baby will be woken in transfer from cart-seat to car-seat and will not go back to sleep, but rather, will cry inconsolably until you are back home.
   
4. If you go to school to pick up your kindergartner, and if you roll down the car windows so your other children can have fresh air while you walk up to meet her as she leaves her class, your son will magically transform into Bo Duke and your Suburban magically into an orange Dodge Charger and said son will have broken three previously discussed rules-- he will take off his seatbelt, will climb over the back seat, and will climb out the car window-- to come follow you… but he will only do this after you have already made it to the front of the school.
   
5. If, right at lunchtime, your sandwich slips from your goofy fingers, it will not fall onto a plate, or onto the counter, or even onto the floor. Rather, it will fall into the kitchen sink… and undoubtedly into a cereal bowl full of dirty dishwater.
   
6. If you are running late to pick up your first-grader, and you have finally gotten all children loaded into the car so you can leave, you will see an empty carseat and realize that you’ve left the baby asleep in the playpen… but only after you’ve locked the front door and your keys are already in the ignition.
   
7. If you are in the front yard, your 3-year-old will open the front door, fully clothed, and holler, “Mo-omm!! I need you! I just went poops in the potty, and I want you to come in so you can wipe me!”
   
8. If you are in the front yard, your 3-year-old will open the front door, completely naked, and come out into the yard, saying, “Mom, I didn’t want to wear my clothes, so I took them off.” He will also, unbeknownst to his mother, answer the front door in the same manner… to which the newspaper girl will respond, “I’ll come by later.”
   
9. If you are inside the house, you will hear the muffled cries of your 3-year-old in the front yard, saying, “Mo-om!! I’m alone on the porch! I need to come inside!” And then as you unlock the front door to let him in, you try to figure out how he got out there to begin with? Hmm… and that question will obviously drive you crazy because you will probably never get a straight answer out of the kid.
   
10. If you take your children to an always-unoccupied playground, the minute you unload from the car, a line of 30 kids will cross the street in front of you, following their teacher, and they will overrun the toys… and then you will, with a big sigh from yourself and a bunch of groans from your kids, reload into the car to go somewhere else... and that somewhere else will probably be home.
    
    

    And when Monkeys’ Laws are in effect, and they certainly always are, Murphy’s Law dictates that, today, 9 of the 10 will occur.
    
    

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