parents

10 things you never thought you'd say

“Please take the phone out of the fridge.” This is what I found myself saying, quite calmly in light of how I was feeling, when I heard the phone ringing through the door of the fridge the other day.

It’s not something one says every day. Unless of course you live with a smallish person who thinks the beauty of turning 11 is the practical joke in everything. I did find the salad dressing next to the shampoo the other day and I very nearly gave my hair an olive oil treatment without even knowing it.  Yes, I baulked when I heard myself saying “who put the salad dressing in the shower?”

Nathan Ripperger, a dad from Iowa, found inspiration from his own parenting and has eternalised the things he never thought he’d say into a series of posters. Hysterically true. Every one of them:

To see more images click here

Ever since my son came along I have found myself saying a lot of things that to the casual bystander would sound very… well, very odd. It’s a well known truism that the things that come out of kids’ mouths are priceless. In innocence and hilarity. However, what about the things adults say to kids? Or even to their colleagues, friends or partners?

There are the familiar old lines like “Please don’t eat your shirt” and “your dinner knife is not a piece of ninja equipment and swiveling it like that is dangerous AND STUPID”. Plus of course the line that I think every parent has cried pleadingly every meal time since the invention of the serviette: “your shirt is not a serviette.”

Or the time I heard myself saying to my son: “If you shoot one more person you are going straight to your room.” It was a Lego gun. I promise.

And I am not even going to tell you how often I have found myself saying: “I am not listening to another word until you have clothes on.” To both my husband and my son…

Image source: Etsy.com

What are some of the things that you never thought you’d say?