What We Have Become

A long time ago one of my friends left her kids with me for a short while. I'm sure it was just an hour or two so she could run some errands without them along. We all traded out like that all the time. It was nothing.

But, to her little girl, it made a big impression. Later, her mom mentioned to me what her daughter said about life in our house.

She said it was fun. A happy house.

At the time, I felt bad. I felt awful that she would say that to her mom as a sort of statement against her own family. But more than that, I felt bad that she had that impression of our family, because I was sure it was wrong.

That was a time that I wasn't sure we were even going to survive each other, let alone be fun and happy. I know that I did not think of us as either fun or happy.

But along the way here through space and time, something has happened, and that little girl was right.

We are fun and happy.

We have been enjoying one long weekend together. We started last Tuesday. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of you thinking it's crazy. How could we be possibly having a good time, this long, all of us together, at home, "doing nothing."

Well, part of it is that we like each other. Now, I'm not saying that we don't all have our moments when we get on another's nerves, we do. That's part of life. But for the most part, we all really, genuinely, like each other.

I like to be around my kids and husband. I like the people they are, and the people they're becoming. I like that we have fun together. I love that we make each other laugh.

Today's lunch is a prime example. If we were a milk drinking family, this would have been a milk shooting out of your nose sort of lunch.

In the middle of bologna and cheese and ketchup-- the champion lunch of all little boys, and the I can't believe there's still turkey left salads, The Littlest Mr. jumped up from his chair. He let out a loud scream, flexed his muscles and ripped off his Superman shirt to reveal his Hulk impression. From there, we quickly degenerated into a squealing group of brain stormers ripping off superhero names a quickly as we could. There were some really funny ones. Anyone with boys will understand Super Stench Man and Wennie Waggler without any explanations.

There just is no way to recount it here and do it justice. We were definitely on the verge of liquids shooting from nostrils though when we got to one of us saying, "Stop it, or I'm going to be Pee In My Pants Boy!"