Don’t ever… take the seeds out of a chipotle pepper, add the skin of the pepper to your pot of chili, then rub your eyes before you’ve had a chance to wash your hands.

Don’t ever…feed your baby an ENTIRE jar of bananas for his first taste of baby food, unless you feel like cleaning up banana vomit. Maybe pick up a book and READ about what you’re supposed to do and don’t just say, “Wow. He really likes bananas”, and keep feeding them to him until he explodes.

Don’t ever…shovel your entire driveway without considering that maybe you need to wipe your nose. You may just find yourself looking up to see your neighbors, with a three-inch long glob of snot hanging out of your nostril.

Don’t ever…tell your boss she’d have to be pretty stupid to pack her plane tickets in her suitcase, until you were sure she didn’t already do that once.

Don’t ever…claim to know the words to a 50-Cent song. Your cool, hip friend might just call you on it.

I don’t own this last one. It belongs to a friend, but it would win the, “Learn from my mistakes” award, if there was such a thing.

Don’t ever…report your car stolen, unless you can actually remember which level of the garage you parked on. You may have the police looking for it, and suddenly stumble across it a few days later. And, you might just have friends who will never let you forget it.

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This morning the homepage on my computer had a survey asking who is the least-attractive, female star in Hollywood. I suppose the brilliant mind behind this survey took their lead from Maxim magazine’s recent list, which has received quite a bit of publicity. Though, not the uproarious publicity it deserves. It seems there are actually sad, little, shallow-minded individuals who care about some sexist fool’s “bottom-five”.

I don’t know who compiled the list for Maxim. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. I’m not giving their web-site the traffic to check it out. Either way, I’m guessing the guilty party has some female relatives. A sister, an aunt, a niece…a daughter. At the very least, they have a Mother who carried them and bore them. She probably didn’t look too attractive squeezing their block-headed-numbskull out of her either.

In fairness, I can’t just point the finger at Maxim or my cable company. There are lists like these all over the place. I have a daughter who isn’t aware of them yet, and I wish I could shield her from the ignorance and emptiness of that portion of our society forever, but unfortunately I can’t.

At this point, I can only hope that she will grow up to be well-adjusted and know that she is exquisite, no matter what anyone ever says. I want her to know that being humble equals refinement. That kindness equals beauty. And, above all…that people deserve respect.

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This is my yard, covered with a zillion leaves which need to be raked and bagged.

And, this is what is still to come.

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I started working again last week. More or less, I have been out of the work-force since late 1998, when my daughter was born. For those, like me, who are math impaired…that’s nine years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve kept pretty busy with my two preemie kids. For awhile, my son’s therapy, doctor’s appointments, insurance hassles and healthcare needs were a full-time job. But now, he’s five and in preschool. He even eats lunch there. He doesn’t need me so much anymore.

My daughter has become little Miss Self-Sufficient lately. I woke the other day to find her in the kitchen packing her lunch for school. Little does she know, her chore list is about to get a lot longer. Momma’s gonna need a hand.

That leads me to the real purpose of this post. I have always given accolades to working Moms and Dads (to the youngsters in the house…that means something like mad props). But, I was short-changing them by saying things like, “I don’t know how you do it”. I should’ve been saying, “You are amazing because you do it”. People who have something left to give to their kids when they have been working all day…well quite frankly, that’s just unbelievable…and at this point, it baffles me.

I’m still trying to find out how it works, how you juggle all these responsibilities. But, I’m excited and ready for the challenge. I want my children to know that you need to be determined and keep your nose to the grindstone. I want them to see that you can have your cake and eat it too. That you can be a successful employee, a caring Mom, a great friend, and still have time to take care of yourself!

Either that, or I’ll show them that if you bite off more than you can chew, you end up choking and falling over dead. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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