Stay-at-home moms may like to argue that we do in fact use our minds, that our higher education was not in vain, that being with our children and running our household requires a great deal of mental acumen. Without question, I agree. Take just this one child of ours. At the age of 18 months, he already has me thinking outside the box. I have the privilege of constantly reinventing ways to say the very things I would otherwise have to repeat 147 times a day, if I were not flexing my intellectual muscles. For example, rather than repeating these simple sentences I may chose elevate my vocabulary, with the hope that this happens to help him respond with compliance:
Stryder get down = Son, lower your elevation.
Don't touch that = Refrain from reaching forth.
Please stop crying = Cease from shedding tears.
Get off the dishwasher = Kindly remove your body from the dish-cleansing device.
Don't hit your brother = Discontinue striking your sibling.
Stryder, come here = Fourth-born-child, come hither.
Stop running toward the street = Halt and reverse.
Or, I can even change languages:
English: Stryder NO!
Spanish: Stryder NO!
Now tell me that's not intellectually stimulating.
