Ruffled Feathers and Spilled Milk

Farming with ducks and dairy goats, chickens and children.

Place Your Bets.

Posted on | June 22, 2014 | 3 Comments

A full house is almost impossible around here.  One of the kids is always missing—sports, sleepovers, birthday parties, camp, play dates, any excuse to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Sometimes we’ve got one pair.  Occasionally we’ve got three of a kind.  Sometimes we’re busted.

In the beginning it was disorienting to count heads and come up with fewer than 4.  My heart would pound and my breath would catch as I’d realize that not only had I finally lost one, but I had no idea what the missing child was wearing.  No idea.  Not even a haphazard guess.  What kind of a mother couldn’t describe to police what her child was wearing before he or she wandered off in the Food Lion???  (Besides a mother that makes them dress themselves, wash their own laundry, and put it away in their drawers and closets on their own.  And should I admit those facts to the police?  Is it even legal to make kids do their own laundry nowadays?)

Even worse, what if the stress made me stumble over his or her birth date like I do in front of the pharmacist after a bout of illness in the kids??  People, it’s confusing to have some children that are born 2 years apart and some that have birth years that are back to back.  (Anyway, who’s fabricating stories in the CVS to get illegal pink eye medicine??)  God help me if the police asked me when I last had all 4 kids together.  Surely we all arrived in the car together.  Right?  I mean, probably.  Maybe.  Um,….were they all in the car when we got here??

Eventually my brain would override my panic and I’d remember that the missing child was at a bowling birthday party or swimming at the neighbor’s house or staying after school for practice.  As the kids grew I even got accustomed to the absences.  Lately it’s unusual to have all the kids together.  I’ve become resigned to it.  I figured the days of all 4 of them trooping through the house, battling over board games, rushing in and outside, building forts, and playing tag through the yard and the woods were almost finished.  Maybe even over.

My parents did not yield so easily.  They weren’t about to fold.  No, they were ready to call against baseball games and sleepovers.  They were ready to raise  the stakes.  And for the past 2 weekends we’ve had all 4 kids together.  All in one place.  All day long.  That’s right, people.

Grandma and Grandpa got a pontoon boat.

When the kids weren’t fishing….

or flinging themselves into the lake….

….they were swimming around the boat.  Playing tag.

Full house, people.  Full house.

Which is also, in poker, called a “full boat.”

Go figure.

Best to place your bets on Grandma and Grandpa.  They’ve got an ace in the hole. 🙂

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

3 Responses to “Place Your Bets.”

  1. Tanya Lam
    June 23rd, 2014 @ 5:25 am

    Wish we had a Grandma and Grandpa like that!!!!!!

  2. Roanne
    June 23rd, 2014 @ 6:38 am

    Talk about raising the stakes!!!!!!! Everybody wins!!

  3. Kim
    June 23rd, 2014 @ 8:11 am

    The oldies always know best! Just when you think you’ve learnt all there is to know about kids, your mother comes along and does something more – I love that!

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