I have had the privilege of raising boys with a couple of
moments of sanity having my husband’s daughters stay with us. With only a
couple of teenagers left at home, we fill our house with the noise of
grandchildren on the weekends, two girls and a boy. When the older kids were
still at home, I recall I would go to the Dollar Store and throw a couple of
dart guns in the cart for the little ones.
My husband would follow behind me and throw enough in so that the four
older kids each had one along with one for himself. We would walk into the
house and my husband would start tossing a gun to each child and the fight was
on.
I learned early on in my marriage that the fantasy of having
a house dressed up as a Hallmark store like my mom’s beautiful home was never
going to be a reality for me. I
adjusted. I tucked the China cupboard into the corner for safekeeping and the
rest of the house was fair game. Now we
live in a house where the only thing separating the living room from the
kitchen is a short, bar-style wall.
When things get rolling there are footballs being tossed back and forth,
a small basketball being shot through the mini hoop hung over the hallway
entrance, and nerf guns whizzing past, several times having landed in my dishwater. The kids know that as long as
there is no blood shed, pretty much anything goes. I’m cool like that and to
quote my friend, Lisa, “and if there is blood shed take it outside so you don’t
get it on my carpet.”
When the boys are helping put groceries away, many times
they would just take the meat out to the garage freezer and put it in there,
not bothering to actually take it out of the grocery sack. I was not going to
criticize that. At least they were helping. I went out one summer day to grab a
grocery sack out for supper. The kids were in the front playing and the garage
door was open. I lifted the sack out, surprised at how light it was. I held it
up in the sunlight and hollered at my boys, “Is this a gopher?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry Mom! Mr. Smith at church said he would
teach me how to tan a hide!”
“On a gopher?! You’re lucky I discovered this or you would
have ended up with gopher stew tonight!” A couple of side notes here. I have changed the name to Mr. Smith to
protect the innocent (?). Also, I am all
for learning. We homeschool and it dawned on me then that my example of turning
everything into a teachable moment had backfired on me. I had actually bought a dissecting kit from a
homeschool convention, not really thinking I would ever have to use it. My
husband refused to be a part of this little project and my boys were aching to
dissect the gopher and tan its hide. So we did. Once we got in, it wasn’t bad
and I was thrilled that the boys were able to identify many of the inside
parts. After that was done, they took it from there and I entered my garage one
day to see a tiny little hide stretched out and tacked onto a board.
Now that they are teenagers, they have calmed down a bit from
their exploits. However, after we took the grandkids home yesterday and I went
to crawl into my bed last night, silent alarms went off and I knew I would have
to prepare for another round of adventure. I pulled back my covers and there
lay a plastic dagger belonging to my four-year-old grandson. Let the games begin!
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