Top 20 Things I Learned from My Kids

The student teaches the master.

I realize this might come as a shock to some of you, but helping in the creation of a Spawn of Your Loins does not confer instant omniscience.

Nope. You've got to work at it for a while before you know everything. Fortunately, your young Spawn won't know the difference for a number of years until you're up to full speed on the knowing-everything thing. Which lasts until the young Spawn is about 12. At which point, you suddenly lose all but the necessary IQ points for mouthbreathing and become the most ignorant individual in existence.

But let's not dwell on the darkness today. Let's, instead, talk about the work.

I said omniscience doesn't come easy. Sure, it seems easy when your young Spawn asks you a question, you pause, paste a thinking look on your mug and then bark out the first thing that comes to mind and sounds vaguely reasonable. But eventually they will catch on. By which time you'd better have a much firmer grasp on reality than previously.

The thing is, dads need to learn from everything around them, if they're going to pass themselves off as knowing everything. You can even learn from your young Spawn. Just as long as you pretend you already knew it.

With that in mind, I'd like to present a list of the Top 20 Things I Learned While Wrangling Spawn, also known as my List of Things I Learned From My Kids.

1. Saying blueberries are "Smurf chunks" can't be taken back until the Spawn stops screaming.
2. If you blow your nose hard enough, air shoots out the corner of your eyeballs near your tear ducts. True story. 
3. Just because you read about something interesting in a column, that doesn't mean you should immediately try it.
4. Bathroom locks aren't very good at keeping Spawn on the other side of a closed door.
5. Bathroom door locks are great at keeping people out as long as the person locked inside is too young to actually unlock the door on his or her own.
6. Bright-red-colored food tastes exactly the same as regular-colored food.
7. Farts are funny.
8. No, I mean really funny. 
9. Funnier even than burps, and they're pretty funny.
10. Broccoli must never and I mean never touch meat, also known as the good stuff, on a plate.
11. If you put a bucket of water out on your deck when you go to bed on a night that's forecast to be below freezing, the resulting skim of ice will be the most fascinating thing in the world.
12. Fart noises are pretty funny, too.
13. Cheetos can still be eaten even after having hidden from everyone between two cushions for several months.
14. They won't taste good, but they still can be eaten if it will gross out whoever is sitting next to you.
15. Glitter, while edible, does not get digested. No matter how long it stays in your body.
16. The burned french fry must be eaten by Dad. Although, I'm not sure if this is something I learned, or something I had forced on me by my dad when he visited. Because I sure don't remember him eating any burned french fries.
17. Every story is better if you add zombies. To go along with that, every story is better if read aloud while snuggling on the couch.
18. Sometimes nap time means being quiet so Daddy can stay asleep.
19. It's funny when you draw on Dad's face with a marker when he's asleep. Mommy. . . Not so much.
20. After a long enough while, you can get used to just about any smell.

There you have it. Those are my Top 20 Things I Learned While Wrangling Spawn. 

What about you dudes? Is there anything special you learned? Maybe something you'd like to share with the rest of us?

After all, omniscient beings such as ourselves, need all the help we can get if we're to stay abreast of the latest developments. Go ahead and drop by the comments section and leave a couple of pearls of wisdom you'd like to spread around.