Skip to main content

Normal Family Dinners

I am entertaining the idea that my family might not be normal, regardless of ABC's "The Middle." Alyssa has a boyfriend at BYU. She wanted to bring him home for Sunday dinner. We tried to prep the family but we already knew that having Alyssa home is such a novelty, there would be craziness.

On the way home from church Jacob asked, "So should I plan something specific or just go with it?" I told him to go with it. He has no idea how funny he is when spontaneous. So I made a nice dinner then went to my bedroom to rest for a few minutes. Samantha came in shortly after to tell me they had arrived. I stood up and walked to the hall. "Mom. Put on pants." It's my house, right? Fine. I put on pants.

At dinner, Jacob talked a mile a minute and interrogated the boyfriend who took it all in stride. He visibly relaxed when as he spent time with us. Or maybe because he was relieved I'd put on pants since he'd been warned. We were almost there when they were getting ready to return and Nakai limped over to the couch to sit down. In fact, he was in the active process of sitting when Jacob yelled, "You can't sit there! That's where Grandma died!" Oh. We were so close.

After the shock of the (untrue) outburst, he sat down and promptly took off his leg. Although the youngest in his family, he somehow intuited that the quickest way to little brothers' hearts would be to let them examine his prosthetic leg and and maul his amputated shin stump. It was a hit. The boys were enthralled. Good save.

Last night we went out for Samantha's birthday. I turned to Alyssa and asked if her boyfriend took off his leg and beat her with it, is he hitting her or kicking her? She was mildly amused but heard it before. Samantha asked, "Why did  Sally fall off the swing? Because she had no arms."

Pause.

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Not Sally."

Nope. Not normal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They Call Me Grace

I was nearly 8 years old when my baby sister was born. This was quite fortunate since I was well adept at reading. I was tired of my name. Nancy. So plain. The Sunday comics included a comic strip called Nancy. She hung out with her stupid little boyfriend named Russell, was very boring and cried all the time. Why would parents who love their child name her such a boring name? I assumed they had run out of originality by this point. I was, after all, their third child. There was Mike, then Suzy, after me they had Joey (short for Joanne) and finally Jene Marie. The "j" a soft French slur. It was fitting. We had a French surname. But clearly Jene Marie was their crowning glory. Do I hate for taking all the love from my parents and hogging it for herself? Of course not. She's my sister. She's my baby sister. But if I happen to feel the need to speak to her when she's at work, I always ask for her by using both names; Jene Marie (with the schwa). I don't want her...
22 comments
Read more

Braces!

13 year old got braces today! She also had a little helper on her.
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Gifts

Jill is the slice of home baked pie you long for. Her dad was a farmer. His dad was a farmer. On a hot summer day Jill would call me up to go floating down the canal or ride the slick rocks with the stream into a barely thawed pool of water. She's also the girl I called one day when I was bored and offered to drive two hours and try out this new thing called "Bungee Jumping." We did although I can't remember why . The first year after my college graduation I found myself particularly low on pride.  First of all, I was a college graduate working as a sales clerk.  Too late I discovered that a bachelors degree in sociology is equal to a high school diploma and, in some cases, a G.E.D. and got you hired at JC Penney trying to upsale with a colorful scarf.  On top of it, I'd been dumped.  It wasn't that he was the love of my life.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  He started planning the wedding aloud and I freaked out, pointing out that we'd only bee...
17 comments
Read more