I’ve been thinking about what I do to get through my day. Some days, I do real fun special things, like take the kids for cupcakes or go for family walks or make a huge dinner with dessert and then other days, I hide in the bathroom with a box of cupcakes and eat them in privacy and pray for the day to speed by so I can just go to bed and have some peace and quiet before slipping into dreamland.

Except in my dreams, my house is still messy and loud and well, more like real life and less like dreamland. (aren’t dreams supposed to be filled with chocolate and shirtless hot men and pedicures and housekeepers? Or is that heaven? I can’t keep them straight.)

So, I’ve created a list of things that I do that may help you get through those tough days. (or any day.)

If your baby/toddler/child/teenager is playing peacefully, for the love of God, do not disturb him or her. Do not even acknowledge what is going on, do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT, pretend you don’t even realize it. If this means you need to hide behind the couch then hide behind the couch. Even though you are probably so excited you can’t focus on anything else and so elated that they’re not climbing on your legs, just pretend you don’t notice because in that moment? They forgot that you existed. BUTJUSTFORTHATMOMENT … see, it’s over now. I hope you enjoyed it.

When grocery shopping, forget finding a spot by the door, park next to the cart corral. Yes, maybe, just maybe people become a little reckless with their carts and your precious minivan will probably get dinged up, but who cares? Because if you are shopping with kids, you can grab the cart and begin unloading them from the car straight to the cart, the idea being that their feet never touch the pavement because once their feet touch the pavement they become lunatics. When you’re done shopping, unload your groceries and your kids and just put that cart right into the corral and then drive as fast as you can to the closest liquor store. I mean, home, drive home.

Speaking of the store, curb the questions asking for things from all over the store. “Can we buy marshmallows? Can we ride on the bottom of the cart like that mom is letting her kids do? Can we buy that giant Luke Skywalker?” Before we walk into the store, I look into my kids’ eyes and give them a stern warning … “for everything you ask for, you’ll spend one minute in time-out when we get home. If you ask for twenty things, that twenty minutes” …… Do you hear that? It’s called Peace in the Grocery Store. You are welcome. P.S. you must actually follow through with this threat because if you don’t, it becomes null & void the first time you decide to forget about the punishment.

Tip #4, do never ever forget the punishment. The end.

And finally, the most important tip of all, buy the bag of smaller cookies, you know, like mini-oreos instead of the full size versions…they are much easier to hide from your kids when you’re stuffing them in your mouth behind their backs.