AIRPLANE: What mom impersonates to get a one year old child to eat stained beets.
APPLE: Nutritious lunchtime dessert, which children will trade for cupcakes.
BATHROOM: A room used by the whole family, believed by all except Mom to be self-cleaning.
BECAUSE: Mom's reason to make kids do things that can't be explained logically.
CARPET: Expencive floor covering used to catch spills and clean mud off shoes.
CHINA: Legendary nation reportedly populated bt children who love leftover vegetables.
DATE: Infrequent outings with Dad where Mom can enjoy worrying about the kids in a different setting.
DRINKING GLASS: An carton or bottle left open in the fridge.
EAR: A place where kids store dirt.
EAT: What kids do between meals but not during them.
FABLE: A story told by a teenager arriving home after curfew.
FOOD: The response mom usually giveswhen asked, "What's for dinner tonight?"
GARBAGE: Refuse items that mom winds up taking out herself.
GUM: Adhesive for the hair.
HAMPER: A container, usually with a lid, surrounded by but not containing dirty clothes.
HANDI-WIPES: Pants, shirtsleeves, drapes, ect.
INSIDE: That place that immediately looks attractive once mom has cleaned every room in the house.
JACKPOT: When all the kids stay at a friends' home for the night.
JOY RIDE: Going somewhere without the kids.
KETCHUP: Goop kids use to drown a dinner that mom spent years perfecting to get the seasonings just right.
KISS: Medicine by mom
LEMONADE STAND: Business venture in which mom buys powdered mix, sugar, lemons, and paper cups, and sets up a table, chairs, pitchers, and ice for kids who sits there for three to six minutes and net a profit of fifteen cents.
LOVE: Overwhelming feeling on the occasion when kids do something nice for mom.
MAYBE: No
"MOMMMMY!": The cry of a child on another floor of the house who wants something.
OCEAN: What the bathroom floor looks like after the kids' bath time.
PANIC: What a mother does when the wind-up string stops.
PETS: Small, furry creatures that follow kids home so mom will have something else to care for.
PURSE: A bag mom carries that doubles as a diaper bag when children are small.
QUIET: A state of house-hold peace that occurs only before the birth of the first child and again after the last leaves for college.
RAINCOAT: Article of clothing mom bought to keep a child dry and warm, rendered ineffective because it's in the bottom of a locker.
REFRIGERATOR: Combination art gallery and air-conditioner in the kitchen.
SPIT: All-purpose cleaning fluid especially good to use on kids' faces.
TERRIBLE-TWO'S: Having both kids at home all summer.
TOWELS: Floor coverings.
UMPTEENTH: Highly conservative estimate of the number of times mom must instruct her offspring to do something before it actually gets done.
VACATION: Where you take the family to get away from it all, only to find it there, too.
"WHEN YOUR FATHER GETS HOME": Standard measurement of time between crime and punishment.
XOXOXOXOXO: Mom's salutation guaranteed to make the already embarrassing note in a kids' lunch box even more mortifying.
"YIPPEE!": What mom would jump up and shout if the school year was changed to twelve months.
ZILLION: Amount of times mom has gone to the grocery store this week.
