Should-ing all over myself

As I am holding Baby Boy up to the trash can so that he can urinate squarely inside its rim, I decide to forgive myself. We are probably giving that unarmed security guard services guy quite a show as he watches us on the video camera. Aside from the tourists who surreptitiously touch everything and climb up the rocks at Ruby Falls, despite the guide's caution against this , my son being lifted to whiz in a can could be the most exciting thing to happen all day for the video monitor. I really should know better, though, to have peed the boy before we embarked on the cavernous subterranean journey, because we've already done this. We visited Ruby Falls earlier in the summer, the kids and I. So I should know that there aren't any bathrooms within the whole cavern basement and the place is one big giant dripping spout so even if you don't think you have to pee, you're bound to think you do. I should know this!

Just like I should: - never overdraw on my bank account anymore. - not still break out like a teenager when I am stressed. - observe a reasonable bedtime. - be more diligent in getting my kids to read and do chores and speak 3 languages. - be fit enough to audition for American Ninja Warrior. - make a mealplan for my family the next 3 years like I know you and Pinterest do.

But I need to stop should-ing all over myself. Who, in the history of shoulds has ever benefited directly from someone declaiming, "I should do that thing that I've been meaning to do!"

Try these: - I should vote! - I should container garden! - I should go back to school! - I should not be such a witch all the time!

Which of the above changes a molecule in the world if none are ever executed, if no actions are taken to turn the shoulds into dids?

So I'm tossing should from my lexicon this school year. I will bandy about "want" and "pray about" and "tried" and that powerhouse of a three-letter past tense verb, "did."

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p.s. Here I am with my new friends at Nerd Camp. It was the greatest time among new but true friends.