An Evening Of Too Much Togetherness

I played hookey from church tonight and took the kids shopping. I needed to pick up a few things and gave them the choice of church or an outing with me. I do things like this when Sam's working nights. They chose an outing with me. I feel so flattered.

We had a quick dinner at Panera because bagels are awesome. The last time we were there Luke complained about the hard butter. He had a solution: bring our own next time. We chuckled over it then, but it was slightly less funny when he announced tonight that we forgot to bring our own butter. You have to understand that Luke's only volume is his scream-across-the-playground voice. People several tables away were looking our direction wondering who on earth would bring butter to a restaurant that gives it for free.

At Target things really started to get interesting. Micah wanted to run ahead, which is fine, except that his hearing is slightly impaired since his ear tubes are out and he couldn't really hear us asking him to stop. Yes, that was us screaming at the boy running through the aisles. When I finally decided to corral him into the cart I thought our incident factor dropped. Silly me. We walked by the card section and saw a cute little one with a dachshund on it. My in-laws have one and we're always on the lookout for tacky things to gift them. The card said "Hope your birthday is a weiner." Luke found this quite amusing and announced loudly to everyone within a 3 aisle range that he was going to make a card for Pappy that said "Hope your birthday is a weiner just like you!" (What made it really funny was that he thought that's what the card read. He wasn't making fun of Pappy.) And just as we were walking into the cosmetics aisle he saw a doxie shaped bath rope/net/sponge thing. He asked what it was and before I thought I said, "it's a bath weiner." He found this even more amusing and shouted that for the entire store to hear. And because we weren't done there yet, Luke boomed, "whoa! What stinks?" To which Josh answered, "that would be me. I farted." Niiiice. Just keep walking, maybe nobody will know they belong to me.

Since we successfully stunk up that joint we headed to the mall. In the parking lot Luke nearly got ran over and we had a lively discussion about whether or not the lady would have been arrested. Only the discussion focused more on the word arrested. Luke said she'd be erested. Becky, with her I'm-a-teenager-and-know-everything attitude, corrected him. "It's unrested you idiot!" No, I'm pretty sure that's what parents are. She would have been arrested. It felt good to correct the know-it-all. (But we all laughed over it, including her. I try not to make fun of the kids. Much.)

We had more of the Deaf Boy Running scenes played out in the mall because we did not grab the stroller in our haste to have so much together time. And I had to send a few kids in after Micah when he crawled under dressing room doors. I'm just thankful that they were unoccupied. As we were strolling the halls I saw a sign in a window on the bottom level and asked Becky to remind me to stop in there on the way out. She declared that she would definitely remind me because "this is a face that never forgets." I just looked at her. We both burst out laughing. Of course we had the few boy tussles that must happen in public and at one point I said just a little too loudly, "get a grip! On something other than your brother!" I heard snickering a few clothing racks away.

But it's the ride home that separates the good from the bad and the ugly. After all that together time the kids were giddy with love for each other. It started innocently enough with Luke helping Micah to learn his addition facts. "Micah, what's 5+5?" Becky coughed "10!" and Micah uttered some sort of grunty sound. Luke was all offended that Becky told him the answer. "You told him! That's not fair." We're not even sure the kid can count, much less add. But maybe Luke knows more than we do.

Becky was convinced the Auntie Anne's punch she got was spiked because she was so giddy. Teen girls. And when we saw a policeman in an unmarked car pull someone over there was an animated discussion as to whether or not it was a policeman. Becky finally settled it with Josh once and for all. "What, you thought the flashing lights in the dash were the Flea Control?" That got me going. Yeh, because packing fleas is illegal in this town. I saw one jumping on your head through my windshield which is actually a large magnifying glass. But I'll paper airplane your ticket to you because I don't want infested.

And then things turned ugly. In the spirit of true sibling love, they began the "who's uglier" contest. Things went downhill fast. I get so tired of hearing the kids tear each other down and was trying to dream up a suitable punishment. I know it's a sibling thing and is expected to some extent, but there's gotta be a limit. And I wanted something for when that limit was surpassed. The kids solved the dilemma for me and perhaps came up with the most genius plan ever. I asked them to take it down a notch and Josh thought he was being funny when he said "yeh, or she'll make us do a group hug." Becky declared that I wouldn't. I remained silent, soaking in how much this seemed to terrorize them. My silence triggered their alert systems and they became a little more serious. "She wouldn't, would she?" I reassured them that indeed, I would. And I'll file that one in the back of my mind for future punishment.

I can see it now. They're laying hands on each other in the middle of Wal-Mart and I loudly proclaim it to be group hug time. I'll even wait until one of their friends walks by. It'll be so good.