I have had e-mails from people who wonder if my home is as chaotic as I make it sound in my column.  We have our calm and angry moments like every family, but I try to focus on the funny side of life, because if we can’t laugh about it, we’d all have pretty miserable lives. 

Our home, to some people, sounds chaotic because they never hear the rest of the story.  There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week.  What I write about is merely a snapshot in a week of fairly normal family activity.

That being said, the answer to your question is yes, it is as chaotic as it sounds, but only for short, inconsecutive moments in time.  Here are some snapshots that happened this week:

I was watching my children while they were swimming when I heard my six-year old yell at my eleven-year old because he was splashing him.

“Stop!  I’m having some private moments here!”

The older boy was so stunned at that statement coming from a first-grader, that he turned to me for an interpretation.

“Mom, you speak Six-Year Old; what is he talking about?”

“I think it means he’s peeing in the pool, and if he is, he’s going to have some private moments in his room,” I said threateningly.

Private moments?  Where did that come from?  I didn’t even know those two words were in his vocabulary.  I found myself wondering, “Who are you and what have you done with my kid?”

To quote Art Linkletter, sometimes “Kids say the darnedest things.”  To update that ancient comment, you may quote me, “Kids are always spouting some kind of drivel.” 

Yesterday, while I was busy reading my e-mail, totally detached from the rest of the world, the youngest child sneezed three times… and then immediately burst into tears.  I thought that maybe, since he’s at that awkward age where his forehead is the same height as all the doorknobs in the house, he’d probably smacked his head on one when he sneezed.  I went to comfort him.

“Nobody bless-you-ed me!” he sobbed.  I looked at him in shock.

Feeling very guilty about my massive maternal failure, I quickly tried to make amends by saying “Bless you, bless you, bless you!”

“It’s too late!” he wailed, as if there was no hope for him now.

And so I did what any mother charged with such a terrible transgression would do.  I offered him a cookie.  The crying stopped.

Cookies are magical.  They can mend any hurt and assuage any guilt as well as staving off the “hungries” until dinnertime. 

As I was driving to the grocery store with three kids in tow (well, actually they were in the back seat), I overheard their conversation discussing animals and trying to make animals sounds.

My daughter proudly told her brothers, “I can talk to dolphins, you know.”

Her older brother was skeptical, but the younger one was clearly impressed.

“You can?  Really?” he asked, in awe.

Head held high, she said, “Yep… only they can’t understand what I’m saying and I can’t understand them.”

As a parent, I know the feeling.

You can reach Laura at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit her website www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her books.