When You Give a Mom a Cookie

Based on a True Story

When you give a mom a cookie, she’ll want to put the baby down to play with his toys. This way she can take her time enjoying the delicious treat.

But she will see dust and pet hair coating the rug, and she can’t lay the baby on that mess.  Motherly obligation calls her to vacuum the carpet first.

So she will cradle baby with one arm and haul the vacuum down the stairs, only to realize that it isn’t going to do a very good job with a filter that looks worthy of an ancient artifacts museum…

She will set the baby in his swing, which he will hate, and run to wash the vacuum filter.

But at the sink she will discover an army of breakfast dishes staking their claim under the faucet and daring her to bathe them in mucky filter runoff.

Her shoulders will sag, signaling surrender, and she will wash the dishes—which first requires emptying the dishwasher.

This she can finally do.

The filter will wait on the counter, and the baby will cry while mom empties the dishwasher, so she can wash the dishes, so she can wash the vacuum filter, so she can vacuum the rug, so she can put the baby down to play with toys and finally have some peace while she enjoys her cookie.

The dishes will be clean, the vacuum will be clean, the rug will be clean, and the baby will poop.

So next mom will tuck baby under her arm and carry him upstairs to change his diaper.  But he will also need a change of clothes because baby stuff doesn’t always like to stay inside the diaper, no matter how new it is.

Once the baby is changed, his clothes will need to be scrubbed out because no one likes a stain.  Then mom will figure that she may as well throw the rest of the baby’s laundry into the washing machine since it has already been waiting for over a week.

But when she gets to the laundry room she will discover the load that she put in yesterday afternoon. Now it stinks worse than the diaper she just changed and has to be washed again.   She will know that she needs to empty the dryer so that it will be ready when the clothes finish washing.

Ten shirts, four jeans, and five pairs of socks later (three without matches), the baby will be hungry.

So mom will feed the baby.

The baby will fall asleep.

So will mom.

And the dog will steal the cookie.