Today’s post comes courtesy of a very special request from Audrey, who asked me to write a story based on one of her favourite series of books by Laura Numeroff.  If you’ve never read the “If you give a mouse a cookie” series, they are fun for young readers and the simple, yet clever little storylines always make the kids laugh out loud when we read them.  So, when Audrey asked me to “Please write a story called ‘If you give your kiddo a hug, they want a kiss to go with it'” I was quick to oblige.

To Audrey, I hope you enjoy.

If you give your kiddo a hug.

If you give your kiddo a hug, they will probably want a kiss on the cheek to go with it.

Once you give them a kiss, they will probably want to give you a kiss back.

After they kiss you back, you’ll realize they still have peanut butter on their lips from breakfast, and so you’ll want to wipe it off.

Opening the cupboard for a cloth to wipe the peanut butter, you notice the dust on top of your cleaning products, and realize that you haven’t cleaned the house in quite some time, so you grab the vacuum instead, and head toward to the living room.

Upon hearing the vacuum, the kids will come running into the room, assuming that you’re playing the ‘vacuum us up game’, and will want you to chase them around the house.

As you chase them around the house, you realize that you aren’t as in shape as you were in your twenties, so you decide it is time to jump on treadmill.

Turning on the treadmill let’s the kids know you’re planning to work out, and that requires music, so they’ll ask Alexa to play “Space Unicorn” on unlimited repeat.

After the fifth time listening to the song, you realize that you that you’d really rather not work out, so you’ll ask Alexa to stop the music.

You ask her in what you believe to be a very clear voice, but Alexa responds simply by saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that” and so you repeat yourself a dozen more times, and still she doesn’t listen.

Repeating the same instructions over and over again, with no action or response, reminds you that the kids still haven’t gotten themselves dressed, and so you go looking for the outfits you helped them pick out earlier, which are now jumbled in a pile in the middle of the floor.

Seeing the clothes on the floor will remind you that there is a never-ending mountain of laundry to fold, and so you head to the laundry room to grab a full basket.

While carrying the heaping basket of laundry back to the bedroom, you fail to notice the little toy car sitting on the ground and step barefoot onto it’s sharp corners, yelling out “WHOEVER LEFT A LEXUS ON THE GROUND NEEDS TO STOP!”

Deciding to finally listen to you, Alexa turns off the music.

The sudden, peaceful silence in the house is a sign to the kids that you must now have time to pay extra-close attention to them, so they come running into the room with ‘your’ choice of a board game, a book, a bucket full of melting beads, and a hockey stick.

Recognizing that any attempt at productivity is futile, you decide that it’s time to get outside, and so you choose the hockey stick.

After 20-minutes of getting ready and 3-minutes of playing road hockey, the game is interrupted when your neighbour drives down the street, pulls into their driveway and starts unloading groceries from their trunk.

Seeing your neighbour, reminds you that you haven’t done groceries yet this week, and so you decide that it’s time to go to the store.

Upon hearing of your potential for getting away on your own for half an hour to do some shopping, the kids will want to come with you.

45-minutes later, the kids are buckled into the car and ready to go, which will remind them that they need pee.

On the way to the bathroom, the kids spot the board game they had left in the middle of the floor and decide that, instead of going with you, they want to stay home to play the game with mommy.

In your 30-minutes of ‘free time’ at the grocery store, you walk down the cleaning aisle, which reminds you that you still haven’t finished the vacuuming.

When you get home, you start to vacuum again, but a mound of dried up orange peel, some cracker crumbs and 716 popcorn kernels that spilled two weeks ago and were brushed under the couch with the hopes you wouldn’t find out, clogs up the vacuum and halts your progress.

Getting all of that food off of the floor reminds you that you still haven’t gotten dinner ready yet, so you’ll head to the kitchen to start planning a lovely meal.

Seeing you in the kitchen, will make the kids hungry, so they’ll ask you 300 times in a row for a snack before dinner, and so you cut them up some veggies, put out a few crackers, and a couple slices of cheese.

Once dinner is ready, the kids decide that they are too full from their snack, so they ask to go play instead, to which you reply “Not right now, this is time for some nice family conversation.”  And so they proceed to ask you 100 questions and ignore all of your answers, until it’s time to wash the dishes.

Washing the dishes will remind you that you don’t recall the last time the kids had a bath, and so you’ll go upstairs to get the water ready for them.

After their bath they will want to read a book before bedtime, which sounds to you like a nice quiet activity, so you let them know they can each pick a book.

They pick a book about a mouse who wants a cookie, which reminds them that they are hungry because they didn’t eat their dinner, and so they’ll ask you for snack.

You give them some apple slices, but that is not enough, so you offer some peanut butter to go on the side.

Seeing the peanut butter reminds you of a kiss on the cheek, and how much you love your little kiddos; that they mean more to you than anything else in the world, and that your feelings for them travels fifty-million-billion times around the sun, and so you give them another kiss as you tuck them into bed.

And chances are

If you give your kiddo a kiss on the cheek, they will want a hug to go with it,