(With apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff, author of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.")

If you give a mom a cookie ...

... she's going to grab the grubby little toddler's hand that passed her the cookie and shriek, "Aaagh! I didn't give this to you! Where'd you get it? Quit eating junk off the ground!"

When she's done shrieking, she'll check frantically under the oven and sofa for more runaway cookies.

Finding no cookies, but discovering one moldy old carrot stick, two buttons, three choke-hazard-size toy parts and an army of hostile-looking dust bunnies, she'll drag out the vacuum.

She'll turn the vacuum on.

Then she'll turn the vacuum off when her vacuum-phobic toddler starts sobbing.

To stop the sobbing, Mom will scramble for something for the baby to chew on.

She'll hand him a teething ring.

Then she'll watch the baby hurl the teething ring to the ground and gnaw instead on a moist-wipes box, then a house slipper, then his own arm.

That's when Mom will suspect a new tooth is coming in.

She'll head for the medicine cabinet for some Children's Tylenol.

Seeing the medicine cabinet door hanging ajar will remind her that she still hasn't installed the $115 worth of babyproofing devices Dad bought three weeks ago.

She'll spend the next 10 minutes struggling to install a childproof latch on the medicine cabinet.

She'll spend another three minutes struggling to get the childproof latch open because she forgot to take out the Children's Tylenol first.

When she finally gets the Children's Tylenol, she'll discover that it has expired.

She'll curse.

Her preschooler will repeat the curse word.

Now Mom will need some grownup Tylenol.

So she'll head to the kitchen for a glass of water to wash the grownup Tylenol down.

When Mom gets to the kitchen, she'll see last night's dinner dishes still lying in the sink with the breakfast dishes.

She probably will resent having to wash so many dishes.

When she's through feeling resentful, she will feel guilty, remembering that her husband was too exhausted from his 10-hour workday to do the dinner dishes last night.

When she's done feeling guilty, she will feel annoyed at herself for feeling guilty, because even though she stays home to take care of the toddler and preschooler and the home most days, she works hard at it, and she works hard at her office job, and she also works from home, and all that working would make anyone feel pretty darn exhausted too, thank you very much!

All this feeling resentful and guilty and annoyed will make her crabby and exhausted.

That is when she will find it necessary to go horizontal on the couch, throw one arm over her eyes and moan softly.

Which is the position Dad will find her in when he gets home.

So Dad may offer Mom a foot rub.

And his reward will be: Uh, honey, not like that. Ouch. No, not that way, either. That tickles!

When Dad runs out of good will, Mom may sigh and ask if he will just put on some water for her tea.

Chances are she's going to ask for a cookie to go with it.

But she's going to ask twice where that cookie came from.

Esme Infante Nii is an Advertiser staff writer and copy editor. Reach her at enii@honoluluadvertiser.com or The Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.