top nine tips for being a more positive wife and mother

BY ELIZABETH BASTOS

1. Notice the good things your children and husband are doing. (Maybe they are drawing their letters on the dry-erase board. Good for them!)

2. Tell them you've noticed. (And choose words like: "I've noticed the word ANUS.")

3. Say what makes you proud about it. ("And this time Daddy correctly spelled it!")

4. Smile beatifically, then busy yourself in the kitchen making all-white-meat-pounded-panko-breaded chicken nuggets.

5. The easiest way to be positive is not to think.

6. So, conclude dinner with encouragement and hope for the future. (Try this: "Next time, Alexander, you're going to remember how it felt to have peas stuffed up your nose. And you'll make different choices!")

7. Again, smile beatifically, clean up, and, again, don't think.

8. Do not be sarcastic.

9. You might get some reward sex from your husband because "Good job, you moron, next time why don't you spell DOUCHEBAG!" is what you won't have said.

Elizabeth is a stay-at-home mother of two under five. Before having kids, she worked in corporate and foundation relations, and before that at the Museum of Science, Boston. She moonlights writing in the very early mornings before everyone gets up and wants things. In the little free time she has, Elizabeth makes complicated French patries to tempt her kids into doing what she asks. Her work has appeared in terrain.org, The Delmarva Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Tar River Poetry, and the Baltimore City Paper. Visit her blog: Goody Bastos. Elizabeth can be reached at: elizabeth.bastos@gmail.com.