That's what happened with the Muffin Poem. Here is my original poem:
If You Give a Mom a Muffin
By Beth Brubaker
If you give a mom a muffin,
she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
Her three year-old will come and spill the coffee.
Mom will wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry into the washer,
she'll trip over shoes and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook
(How to Make 101 Things With a Pound of Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse,
which is being dumped out by her two year-old.
Then she'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year-old.
While she is changing the two year-old, the phone will ring.
Her five year-old will answer and hang up.
She'll remember she was supposed to phone a friend
to come over for coffee.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some more.
And chances are,
if she has a cup a coffee,
her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.
By Beth Brubaker
If you give a mom a muffin,
she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
Her three year-old will come and spill the coffee.
Mom will wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry into the washer,
she'll trip over shoes and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook
(How to Make 101 Things With a Pound of Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse,
which is being dumped out by her two year-old.
Then she'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year-old.
While she is changing the two year-old, the phone will ring.
Her five year-old will answer and hang up.
She'll remember she was supposed to phone a friend
to come over for coffee.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some more.
And chances are,
if she has a cup a coffee,
her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.
Now, one of the more popular versions that have been 'tweaked': (changes from the original in bold print)
If You Give a Mom a Muffin
If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of
Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.
She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on
Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.
If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of
Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.
She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on
Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.
I have no idea where the snow boots came from, or why Friday was added, but this is what was being sent around by that 'other' author. And she totally messed up my cadence- nobody messes with my cadence...they get hung by their toes and flogged with wet noodles.
Then it gets even better! (Yes, I'm starting to have fun with this folks!) This version I just found, and I think she takes things to the extreme....kinda. My comments are in blue.
Then it gets even better! (Yes, I'm starting to have fun with this folks!) This version I just found, and I think she takes things to the extreme....kinda. My comments are in blue.
If you give a (Mormon homeschooling) mom a muffin....
A friend of mine wrote this, based on the book "If You Give a Moose a Muffin"....I'm not sure, but I think what she wrote is based on an actual day with her kids.**UPDATE** God is good! My poem is currently going under contract to a publisher! (details to come later) Please understand that I can no longer give permission to those that want to repost this poem- if you already have the poem on your site, please make the corrections, but do NOT delete it. After speaking with the publisher, any postings previous to the contract date are okay! Thank you to my readers for sticking up for me! God Bless!
(No Dearheart, she based it on my poem. But go ahead and post this- it's a lot more than I ever wrote!)
If You Give a (Mormon Homeschooling) Mom a Muffin…
She will want some orange juice to go with it. (no, no, no...coffee.)
She will pour some orange juice into a glass, and go to put the pitcher in the fridge.
When she turns around, the 7 year-old will be drinking the orange juice.
She will say “Hey!”, startling the 7 year old who will spill the remaining orange juice on the table, chairs and floor.
She will get two dishrags and teach the 7 year old how to properly clean up a spill.
While she is wiping up the floor, the phone will ring.(at least this was part of the original- Though not together like this.)
She will jump up to get the phone, knocking the back of her head on the table.
The 4 year old will beat her to the phone (of course!)
(The four year old does NOT take messages.) (a foreshadow that she hung up the phone without taking a message. Of course.)(of course.)
While she is trying to get the phone from the 4 year old, the baby will begin screaming and the 6 year old will run and hide.
She will pick up the baby as the 4 year old hangs up the phone. (See? I told ya!)(of course.)
She will begin searching for the 6 year old…in the linen closet….
She will find the stack of bills she has been looking for all week. (Huh? In the linen closet??)
She will remember that the utility bill is due tomorrow and go looking for her checkbook. (sorta kinda from the original)
She will find that the 4 year old has dumped the entire contents of the purse onto the floor and is applying lip gloss to her eyebrows. (Okay, the first part is like mine, but I do like this line about the lip gloss!)
She will go to the laundry room (and doesn't do laundry for six more lines) to fetch a diaper wipe, and will slip on the remaining orange juice.
She will crash onto her rear and start the baby screaming again.
The 6 year old will giggle from in hiding. (the pantry?)
She will stand up, console the baby and head toward the laundry room for that diaper wipe.
She will find the dryer door open (with her shin) and full of wet clothes.
She will call the 10 year old to finish her chore. (okay, so her kid does the laundry)
The 7 year old will show up asking for help with a math problem.
The math problem is about hamburgers.(another foreshadow)
She will remember that she is supposed to take dinner to the new mother down the street.
She will get a pound of hamburger out of the freezer and look for her cookbook “101 Things to do with a pound of Hamburger”. (this looks pretty darn close to the original!)
She will step over the contents of her purse (apparently dumped by the four year old, hint, hint)(where is the 4 year old now??), carefully side-step the orange juice, and start going through the recipe books.
The phone will ring. Again. (of course…)
The 4 year old will beat her to the phone (of course!)
The 4 year old does not take messages (remember?)
The baby will ”explode” in his diaper. (Wow. way to be subtle about the diaper needing to be changed!)
The 6 year old will giggle again (the pantry?)
She will side-step the orange juice, step over the contents of her purse, and head back to the laundry room to change the baby.(again, sorta from the original)
Digging through the laundry basket for clean baby clothes will remind her that she is still wearing pajamas.
She will strip to the skin and find clean clothes for Mom too…
The doorbell will ring … (of course!)
The 4 year old will beat her to the door (of course!)
It is the neighbor girl selling girl scout cookies.
She will send the 10-year old to sort through the contents of her purse for money to buy some Samoas.
The 10 year old, the 7 year old, and the 4 year old all surface, asking to have some.
She says “Yes” so she can get dressed in peace. (no you can't.)
The baby starts crying.
She steps over the contents of her purse, side-steps the orange juice, walks around the cookie crumbs and collapses in the rocker to nurse.
The phone rings. AGAIN! (of course!)
The 4 year old beats her to the phone (of course!!)
The 10 year old snatches the phone from the 4 year old and reports that it is Daddy.
Daddy wants to know A) why the 4 year old has been answering the phone all morning and B) if she can scan and e-mail the important document he left on his desk.
She will carry the nursing baby upstairs to find the document.
The 4 year old has drawn a purple family on the important document.
She will look for the white out.
Looking for the white out will take her to her desk where there is a post-it screaming – “BOOK CLUB!! DON’T FORGET TREATS!!” (Why did she let the kids eat those Samoas, anyway??!!)
She will head downstairs and gather all the children together and begin a lesson in “real life” math (aka doubling recipes). The 6 year old has finally appeared and is crying because he got no Samoas.
She will go to the pantry for the sugar and flour.
She will find the 4 year old eating sugar straight out of a #10 can and spilling most of it on the floor.
She will lay the now-sleeping baby down and fetch the broom.
She will sweep up the sugar!!! (YEAH!)
She will get the purse contents off of the floor and head back to her desk to write a check to the utility company… (DOUBLE YEAH!!) (where were those bills again??)
She will white out the purple family and scan and e-mail the document. (THREE JOBS DONE!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??)
The baby will wake up. (Does 17 minutes even count as a nap??)
She will taste the cookie dough that the 10 year old has taken charge of. Since it is only slightly too salty, she will put the first batch in the oven.
She will look around at the flour, sugar, and chocolate chips all over the floor and decide it can stay there with the orange juice until after lunch.
She will decide to start some read-aloud.
The phone will ring (of course!)
The 4 year old will beat her to the phone (of course!)
(The 4 year old does not take messages, remember??)
She will take the phone off the hook.
The cell phone will ring. (It’s Dad’s ring)
Dad wants to know A) why the house phone is busy and B) if she ever sent that e-mail.
She will head back upstairs to try again.
The doorbell will ring. (of course)
It’s the neighbor. (She will remember she offered to watch the neighbor’s toddler for an hour)
The neighbor asks if something is burning and will look skeptical about leaving her toddler.
She will feed the first batch of cookies to the dog.
She will put in a second batch and gather all the kids around for a good book.
The baby will start screaming.
She will ask the 10-year old to turn pages while she nurses and reads.
The phone will ring. (HUH? – she thought it was off the hook)
The four year old will beat her to the phone. Again. Of course.
The 7 year old will wrestle the phone from the 4 year old.
Did she try sending that e-mail again?
(She will say a very mild swear word, but only in her head)
She will head upstairs to e-mail the document.
The neighbor’s toddler will scream. The 6 year old will run and hide.
She will feed the second batch of cookies to the dog. (She will set the timer for the third batch.)
She will head upstairs to email that stinking document.
She will hear the cookie timer and race downstairs. She will see that it is already 2 O’clock. She will feed the kids cookies, dried apples and yogurt for lunch. And she will pour them some orange juice to go with it. While she is at it, she will pour herself a glass of orange juice and go look for that muffin (wasn't this in the original, sans the beverage choice?)….maybe it is in the linen closet…..
If Laura Numeroff wrote this, it would have been a novel, not a children's book! But kudos to the mom who went through this and lived to write about it!
Now you see what can happen, even if someone does copy and paste from the internet. Most of this poem is hers, because there is no way I could do all of that and survive- especially after tripping over the contents of my purse twenty times and the kids hanging up on everyone- remember, her kids don't take messages.
Do you see why I won't pursue this anymore? By the time I go through all the people in the lane, ask for the changes, and then repost the original, I'll be a few hundred years old! So I'll read the copies and chuckle at the changes.
Now for the 'legal' part- ** (Please see update below!) Please don't copy anything but the original poem in this post. Yes you can copy it with my blessings- just list me as the author and post my blog link with it. You can use it for whatever you like, but if you become a millionaire because of it, share that wealth with others. It'll do a body good to see it benefit everyone who reads it. :)**
God Bless!
2 comments:
today is the first day I read your poem.
I am a mother of 9.
4 grown and out of the house.
5 still at home from the ages of 21 to 11.
I laughed and laughed and cried til my tummy hurt.
You described how I've spent most of my life.
As a Grandma of 7, I see the cycle beginning again.
I can't wait to share this with my daughter and daughters-in-law.
Saw this poem on Facebook and found your website. Love your poem! It's so true. Thanks for sharing.
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