My kids have ESP

by John Watson (Subscribe to John Watson's posts) May 20th 2006 3:00PM

But not the good kind. Not the kind that can predict lottery numbers or tell me if I'm going to regret eating an egg salad sandwich. What they do have is an uncanny ability to find me and ask me for something at precisely the moment when I least want them to. At first, it's unbearably frustrating, but as the years pass and you mature as a parent, it becomes maddening. It seems to be a truth, unfortunately, that the slowest way to get children to come to you is to call them. The quickest way is to use the bathroom.

Children also seem to have a third-sense about who is the tiredest person in the family at any given moment. They know who has had the least sleep. And this weird sense leads them to that person whenever they are bored or hungry. Which is unfortunate, because the only other two senses that children are known to possess are boredom and hunger.

Do your kids have some kind of weird clairvoyance that tells them when you're on the phone or want to have some alone time with your spouse? Do your kids have ESP?

Comments (17)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

thordora 5-20-2006 @ 3:42PM

Since they were born , the MINUTE you contemplate food in the mouth, SOMETHING happens/needs to happen/goes wrong/pees/drops something/etc.

It never fails.

Laura 5-20-2006 @ 3:45PM

Oh this post is so, so true. My husband and I are working on conceiving another child and I think my son is hip to our game. He has either taken forever to go to sleep OR woken up up rght as the hubby and I are starting to get down to business. I believe this is all my son's evil plot to remain an only child.

Bathroom interruptions I can handle but don't mess with my booty time.

Amy 5-20-2006 @ 4:09PM

I had to laugh about what you said about the quickest way to get your child's attention is to go to the bathroom- it's so true!!

Ginny 5-20-2006 @ 4:34PM

I am also cracking up about how to get your kids to come to you quickly. You are soooo right.

shari 5-20-2006 @ 5:08PM

it's just a Murphy's law in full effect :D

Moogie 5-20-2006 @ 5:15PM

I loved this post. It is so very true and I would imagine that all parents have experienced this. What is it about going to the bathroom or picking up the phone (no wait, dialing the phone and just beginning a conversation) that causes your children to, in some way, become needy? My kids will also do this to me when I am in the shower, and have just lathered up.

rose marshal 5-20-2006 @ 5:43PM

Oh so very true. And when you absolutely can't come out of the bathroom for personal reasons, you can be sure there will be a major emergency happening somewhere outside the bathroom door. And lets not forget the telephone. My children can be outside playing, but the minute I get a phone call they are under foot, insisting they MUST talk to me right now!

Desiree 5-20-2006 @ 6:03PM

taking a shower, on the phone, up to your elbows in a sink of dishes, peeing...better yet, pooping, cooking, mowing the yard, any number of things....THAT'S when the DEMAND your attention. NEVER when you are not doing anything, that's the time they are quietly playing, or are absorbed in something else. And that my friends is THE PERFECT time to give them a taste of "karma". :P

ann adams 5-20-2006 @ 6:10PM

I just walked in, hadn't even set the car keys down, when the 13 years old needed help. With two other adults in the house, she waited for me.

And, just in case you think it might change, my 33 and 37 years old sons invariably call me either in the bottom of the 9th (the younger son) or during the last minute of of my programs (the elder).

michelle 5-20-2006 @ 6:25PM

being the mother of two teens and two preteens i love to play referee on a sunday morning when i just wanna sleep but of course if i wake up early and wanna clean everyone magicly dissapears..

Diane 5-20-2006 @ 7:00PM

I have five daughters ranging from soon to be seventeen, to 7 mos. when they get in from school which is at various times, they want nothing from me, when I start to cook dinner, well, that is when the phone rings, the oldest one's life is over( and she needs my immediate attention), the baby is screaming......, and my lovely little six year old has all the questions she couldn't come up with yesterday for me today. Yeah, they all have esp.

Wallaby 5-20-2006 @ 7:31PM

Har har har! So true my friend, so true!

Here is a regular conversation with my two (soon to be three) year old:

"What are you doing mommy?"

ME: I am going to wash my hair/go to the bathroom/shave my armpits (etc etc)

"Why do you need to do that?"

ME: So I don't have greasy hair/wet my pants/look like a Yeti.

"Oh, well I will just come in the bathroom and help you..."

I love the kid, but sometimes you just need that "me time"! (Did I ever realise I would clasify peeing as "me time"?!)

Bonnie 5-20-2006 @ 8:34PM

It starts so young too... I distinctly remember soothing our infant son back to sleep in the middle of the night, placing him in his crib, walking back to our bedroom, sitting on the bed, getting under the covers, and the instant my head hit the pillow he would let out a wail calling us back.

Jasmine 5-20-2006 @ 9:11PM

I recall months of going to bed super slow and laying there half way up on my elbow with my eyes propped open with toothpicks so I wouldnt lay my head down and invariably incur the wrath of my newborn. I could pace for hours afterwards just so I wouldnt get to that wonderful state of almost asleep or just gone to sleep just to have Bianca wail in a horrifying manner like she had broken a limb in the crib rails or something. It was automatic. She would be snoozing perfectly until my head hit the pillow, literally. Never figure it out. Karma I guess. Shes only 15 months right now, so it'll be a while till the others start, but I remember doing it as a child, so I know what you mean. My mother always said she never even got to pee in peace, and she was right.

jen 5-21-2006 @ 4:42PM

My son has ESCP - extra sensory conditioner perception (or something like that!). When he was a little baby, he would wake up JUST as I'd put the conditioner in my hair, the one moment during a longed-for shower when I really couldn't get out and see to him. I'd wait all day for a moment where I knew he was asleep, and *waaaaaaaaa*!

When he was first born, only a day old, he'd be asleep perfectly happy in his hospital crib, and I'd wait for my husband to visit before I went for a shower so that I wouldn't have to take him with me (the hospital cribs didn't fit through the shower room door). He would be fast asleep, and I'd just get into the shower, and he would pick that moment to wake up and go wild! Of course he had the dubious notoriety as the loudest baby on the ward (and this was a pretty big hospital - 5000+ babies born a year), so I'd hear him all the way down the other end of the maternity wing, even when the shower was on :D And yes, I'd know it was him - he used to screech like a pterodactyl ;)

Terry Bain 5-22-2006 @ 1:31PM

Oh, there are so many ways my children are perfect students of perception. If they could hold on to that, they would be millionaire's by the time they were 30.

Dogs are similarly able to read us. I think humans lose this ability as we become less interested in other people and more interested in ourselves.

Rich Jerk 12-06-2006 @ 3:49AM

Hahah! Thats hilarious, I don't have kids, however I did have a chat with my cousin some weeks back who seemed to have the exact same problem. We came to the conclusion that its more of a Negative ESP where the parent actually fears the kid asking for something and as a result somehow triggers the kid to do the exact thing that you are afraid them doing. You know kids, they will always try to do the opposite of what you tell them to do ;)

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