Birthday, Dinner, Official Restroom Monitor, Adult Diapers, and Pie

I have the best friends ever. Period. End of story, and no arguing with me about it. Oh, and the title to this blog post has you wondering doesn’t it. Welcome to my world of crazy….fun crazy, but crazy none the less.

My 26th birthday was this past Sunday (yes, the day after Christmas and no commenting if you do not agree with my age) and our best friends and all their kids joined us for a dinner out. It was quickly noted once we sat down that if one more child is added to this group, the adults will be out numbered. And this is very serious. You see, in case you have forgotten from previous posts, there is only one little girl in this group of children….and she is a baby. The rest of them are rowdy boys. And I do mean ROWDY. Ten seconds into this dinner and I had realized that perhaps next year, I will gather my girlfriends and head out of town for some quiet birthday celebrating. After all, I will then be 27 and I’m sure I will not be able to tolerate as much as I do now in my young age.

But, I do love each and every one of those little boys. I cannot tell you how many times they all sang happy birthday to me (loudly), told me happy birthday (also loudly), and gave me hugs and kisses. They may be rowdy, but they are smart, sweet, and know who to love on.

The dinner was wonderful and we all had a good time. I also discovered that it was not just the little boys who would be loud. To keep things honest, I will say that the adults got loud with laughter too.

One of my favorite things of the night was how all the little boys needed to go to the restroom….and certainly not at the same time. I believe it was the BFs youngest son who was first. He is recently potty trained and so when he pipes up that he needs to pee, his parents spring into action. The BF was up and out. She did however take the time to look back and instruct me not to steal her baby girl while she was gone. I really have no idea at all why she would think I would take her baby. It certainly would have nothing to do with this: Is it Wrong.  Once the BF was out of sight, I looked to The Sister and said, let’s grab the baby and leave….. I will share her with you. And she quickly said okay! I love her and how she is willing to assist me whenever I need her even if my actions may be somewhat questionable.

Anyway…..BF and her boy returned to the table and not five minutes go by before Luke needed to go. Since it was my birthday and all, I looked down to Josh and said, hey, Luke needs to go to the restroom. Off they went. And upon their return, the BF’s older boy needed to go. Taking my lead, she yells at her husband, hey, he needs to go to the restroom. And to not be left out, The Sister’s oldest boy claimed he needed to go as well. So, the BF’s husband is up and out with two boys, one of which is not his. Having a bunch of little boys does have its advantages at times for us girls.

{A side note -- if I try to take my son into the woman’s restroom, he will yell (yes, yell). “ I am a MAN!! I cannot go into the WOMAN’S bathroom!” Since when is six years old a man? Just wondering….}

Back to the story at hand, once they returned, not too much time goes by, and BF’s little boy is claiming he needed to go again. I could not contain my laughter. BF looks across the table to her husband and says with a straight face, I took him last time. Ha, ha, ha, ha…..I loved it! And off the BF’s husband went again to the restroom. I then decided he was the official restroom monitor for the evening. If you need to pee, the big guy at the end of the table with a ridiculous goatee will take ya! I am not sure if he ever took The Sister’s youngest boy or not. I can assure you that if he needed to go, someone at the table said that the big guy would take him. It just seems to me that he was gone an awful lot taking those boys to pee.

Once dinner was over the BF and her family were off. I think her husband was fearful that due to the vast number of refills of all the little boy’s drinks, they would need to return to the restroom yet again. His shift was over. Done. Finished. While standing outside with The Sister and her family talking, I invited them over to talk there instead as it was freezing cold outside and I had been super smart and wore flip flops!

After chatting a while at the house, The Sister and I decided it was time for a game….. and Catch Phrase it would be -- husbands against wives because this would ensure a grand time by all. Please note that The Sister’s husband, our favorite police officer, is not really a game person. However, he has learned that there is really no option and we will make him play. I think deep down inside he loves Catch Phrase though. If not, at least I love playing this game with him. I do not know what it is, but this game will make grown adults do and say things they normally would not do and say. If you are reading this and do not own this game, stop reading, go buy it, gather up your friends, and play! And if you are like me, you will need to purchase some adult diapers to put on as well.

I laughed until I cried and could not speak. This morning, my stomach is sore. I honestly think I lost a couple of pounds by laughing. Let it also be noted that when we were playing, we did not have the time to deal with our children. They were on their own. At times, I caught my son looking at us in pure disbelief. I am sure he was wondering what in the world had come over his parents and the other two that are practically his parents as well. I know he was concerned that we had all lost our minds, never to return to normal again. Sorry kiddo, all your parents have lost it in a fit of laughter! Please help us find our way to the crazy farm….

Somewhere around 11:45 pm or so, it was realized that my birthday was just about over. Wait, you cannot leave now, we are all tied up, two games to two. We MUST play again to break the tie!! That is when it happened. The game unit started going crazy. It would mess up the categories and kept losing our score. That round took forever to play and I cannot really recall who won. It may or may not have been the wives….or the husbands, who knows. But, I can say that things happened during this very crucial round that made me look at the husbands differently. Never again will I see our favorite police officer and my husband in the same light. Never. Ever.

Once the game was over, the police officer then wandered into our kitchen where he discovered some leftover Christmas Apple Pie. I told him he was more than welcome to grab a bite and he did. I feel certain he would have eaten a piece even if I had not granted him permission to do so. He started eating and could not believe that I had made it. (I really do not know why as I am a great cook and he has eaten PLENTY of my food!) Yes, I made it and yes, I know it is the best apple pie on the face of this planet! And then he said, that my pie is so good, that I could easily sell them for $20 a pop and make a killing. Really? I asked. Yes, really I am not kidding, he said. This is great pie!

No, I will not tell you where I obtained the recipe many, many years ago. No, I will not tell you what I did to tweak it and make it my own. But, YES, yes indeed, I will sell you the best Apple Pie you have ever tasted for $20 a pop. And yes, I will give my new agent a kickback.

I am off to make pies; I know the orders will pour in……

Christmas Memories, part three: The Tree

The Christmas tree. These words make me shutter a bit because buying a Christmas tree at our house when I was a child was not always fun.



My Grandmother, on my Mother’s side, had the most beautiful tree I have ever laid eyes on. It was tall, full, fake, and flocked. Every year I would hope that it would be the year we would get a flocked tree. Then, the misery of obtaining the tree would not be so bad. But, no. Never. Not once, did we have a flocked tree in our home.


Our tree, was always tall (too tall in fact), full, real, and green. Also bought after December 9th and never, ever, before.


The adventure would start out with my dad and me going to find the tree. And because it was after December 9th, the good trees were almost always gone…go figure. However, once my Dad located a tree that was acceptable to him, the pain and misery would begin. My Dad would begin wheeling and dealing with the tree salesman as if we were buying a car. I am not kidding.


I.Was. Mortified.


I would then wander away and go and look at the flocked trees….dreaming of one. More often than not, I would be awaked from this dream by my Dad saying, “Come on. We are going somewhere else.”


Ugh.


This meant that the tree salesman and my Dad could not come to terms on the price of the tree. Who knows, it could have been the difference of $5 or $20. It did not really matter.


Onto the next tree lot we would go and the pain would start all over again.


After we had been to lot after lot, after lot, my Dad would finally pay for a tree and I would be happy…at least for the ride home.


When we returned home, my brother and my dad would then open the french doors from the patio into our living room and drag the tree into the house. This is when we would almost always realize that the tree was too tall for our house, despite the fact that we had vaulted ceilings. My brother and dad would then start sawing off parts of the tree.


When the tree was then able to stand in our house the decorating fun would begin. We would hang our blue lights on the tree, the blue Christmas balls, our homemade decorations, as well as the decorations my mother’s students had given her over the years. We would throw on TONS of the silvery icicles that just screamed “we do not care if our tree looks tacky”.


Then the fun would stop.


It would be time to put the star on top of the tree. This meant that I was called upon to stand on the shoulders of my brother who is over six foot tall.


Scary.


You see, my brother and I have not always had the greatest relationship. When I was a kid, I did not like him so much and he was well aware of it. So, as I was climbing onto his shoulders I would start to think about him dropping me by “accident”.


I would always start by trying to just sit on his shoulders and bend the tree. This never worked. So, my parents would start telling me to stand up. Meanwhile, my brother would be visibly over the entire thing. I would shake as I stood up and prayed that he would not drop me. I then bent the tree over and put our BLUE star on top.


I was sweating profusely by the time I returned to the ground.


I cannot fully express to you the joy that came over me the year it was announced we were buying a fake tree. Furthermore, the tree is not 10 feet tall, but a more reasonable 7 feet or so. It is not flocked, but that is okay.


My dad still has that tree and I still help put it up. And every year, I am so thankful that I am not going from Christmas tree lot to Christmas tree lot looking for a great bargain of a tree. I am thankful that I am no longer instructed to get on my brother’s shoulders to get the star on top. And most of all, I am thankful that the blue star, blue lights, blue Christmas balls, and silver icicles are no longer on the tree.


Well, one blue light remains on a strand of lights. It is important to remember where you came from.



Christmas Memories, part two: A pig in the Nativity?

When Luke was little, he received a Fisher Price Nativity. This is something that he only gets to play with during Christmas time, so it is no surprise that it is played with a lot during the month of December.

It is sometimes difficult for my son to keep up with all these pieces and to keep them in the proper place.

So, fun conversations and happenings take place.


Momma, I lost baby Jesus.

You did?

Yes.

Well, you better find Him. You cannot have Christmas without Jesus.


Then, days later….


I FOUND JESUS!!!!


It makes me laugh as it sounds like he is on the back pew at a Southern Baptist church during a revival and just got saved.

I also find that the Fisher Price barnyard animals tend to show up to take a look at baby Jesus. All of the sudden, there will be a pig on top of the stable, a horse next to the camel, the angel is off at the farm in the silo, and the farmer has come to milk the cow that is beside Mary. All the while, Jesus may or may not even be there!

Oh well, if you can have the wise men at the Nativity, I guess it is not too out of the question to have a pig there as well. Or even a farmer.