10 Signs You Might Be a Writer with Young Children

If these ten things are true of your writing, perhaps you have young children…

1. You have to search your writing document for random letters scattered throughout the text. Your young star adds them in on a consistent basis. In fact, you noticed another asdeqw amidst your best metaphor right after you clicked submit.

2. You’re an expert at typing one handed. The other hand is keeping a toddler, a sippy cup, and a stuffed ninja turtle balanced on a knee.

3. You feel good about yourself when you squeeze in a full thirty minutes of uninterrupted writing time during the day. It usually happens on a fluke. Like, for once all kids happen to be sleeping in some type of overlap. Or your mom came to visit and took over. Either way, you still take the credit of being such an excellent organizer of your time.

4. You can stop writing mid-sentence. Usually to do something like fish out the pea your tiny human decided to stuff up his younger brother’s nose.

5. You always know when you’ve come up with your best story idea. It comes right before all hell breaks lose. When the dog swallows your toddler’s favorite paci, your newborn decides his afternoon nap will only be ten minutes today, and your other kid’s head gets stuck in the steps of his plastic slide. Oh, and all that right before you wrote the idea down. It’s totally gone now.

6. You must frantically save your document because you have 1% battery left and your charger is missing. One of the littles carried it off. Even though you’re an excellent parent and would never let your children around electrical outlets.

7. You can read your writing aloud with gusto without getting embarrassed. The tiny faces watching prefer the high-pitched elmo accent. It might hurt your vocal cords after a while, but the giggles you get make you feel like a world class comedian.

8. Your writing tunes are cheery mix of nursery rhymes and lullabies. Apparently toys with obnoxious sounds are all they sell these days. Or all that anyone wants to ever buy your children. But at least you never have to listen to a song’s ending because pushing the buttons over and over again never gets old when you’re a toddler.

9. Your character names get interspersed into your daily rhetoric. You swore you’d never be your mom and call out every other kid’s name plus the dog before you got the right one. Now you’re exactly her, but add a few character names into the mix.

10. You get inspired everyday. By laughter. Smiles. And sticky fingers.