More on Having a Child OR Fat Woman Does Homework

Here's what I have learned upon becoming a mother.

1.) Never burp a baby without having a cloth over your shoulder.

2.) College funds do NOT create themselves magically.

3.) Kids will keep anything.  I mean, anything they get.  If you try to surreptitiously try to throw it away later, they will develop the ability to know what you've done and to the only toy/thing/item you've done it to.  (I also learned right now that I had to spell check surreptitiously three times.  My daughter just informed me that it has tit in the middle of it and then she giggled.)

4.) You get to re-learn math and English.  (I know a few moms and dads out there who only have little ones are going, "NOOOOOOOO!" right now, but it's true.  When you get that kid to the fourth grade, you'll be checking their homework or doing it with them, and you'll get to the part that says preposition and prepositional phrase and object of the preposition and you'll forget that you write books for a living and that you're supposed to know this stuff and how run-on sentences are poo-poo and that smart phones do have an Internet hook up so you can look this stuff up.

It was a good thing that the first paragraph of the homework sheet explained those terms to me.

Preposition: a word that connects a noun, pronoun, or phrase to other words.  In, of, over are examples of prepositions.  (They're also examples of words that Bill Clinton is still confused over.)

My definition of a preposition: A word that connects a noun, pronoun, or phrase to other words and drives me insane in the process.  It especially irks me when they ask the kid to identify TWO prepositions in the same sentence (because they put two in there) and then throw the kid in the water with the Great White Shark and absolutely no anti-shark spray.

Prepositional phrase: A phrase that begins with a preposition.  (This doesn't do you any good unless you know what a preposition is.)

My definition of a prepositional phrase: A phrase that begins with a preposition and makes the vein in your forehead pop.  (It's that throbbing vein that makes it so special.)  Examples include: to the store for Ben & Jerry's, to the asylum, and to the doctor for more valium.

Finally, we have the object of the preposition.  (Same problem.  If you don't know what a preposition is, you can't figure out what it's object is.  Or was.  Or has been.  That vein's starting to make Mount St. Helens look small.)

My definition of the object of the preposition: That thing that that other thing clarifies.  See?  Perfectly clear.  In the prepositional phrase to the store for Ben & Jerry's, it would be the store.  Crystally clear, right?  In to the asylum, the asylum would be the object, because that's where I'm going to need to go after helping my daughter with her homework.  And finally, the doctor to whom I must run for medicinal purposes is the object of the prepositional phrase.

Okay then.  English lesson is over.