The Couch Is Not a Trampoline

Some sentences lose their meaning over time.
This one never had a chance.

Story:
She had said the words so many times they’d stopped sounding like language.
The couch is not a trampoline.
Not a trampoline.
Not a bounce house.
Not a soft launchpad for questionable decisions.

And yet—her daughter bounced.

Hair wild. Socks abandoned.
Launching herself joyfully into the air while the dog quietly relocated to a safer part of the house.

Super Ordinary Woman stood at the edge of the scene,
watching this airborne chaos with the weary posture of someone
who had already picked too many battles today.

She could stop it.
She could give the Lecture.
She could confiscate screen time, deliver consequences,
or Google “trampoline alternatives for small houses” again.

But instead, she sat.
On the one remaining stable cushion.
And watched.

Because some days weren’t about teaching lessons.
Some days were about strategic surrender.
And saving your voice for snack time.

Eventually, her daughter tumbled sideways into the cushions,
grinned, and asked for a snack.

The couch stopped bouncing.
So did her thoughts.

For now.

Reflection

The hardest part of parenting isn’t always the big stuff.
Sometimes it’s the sentence you’ve said 800 times that still doesn’t land.
The furniture rules. The energy decisions. The invisible scoreboard in your head.