Always good for a laugh...well most of the time anyway!!

My kids have, yet again, succeeded in changing a serious moment into a moment of comedy, or at least lightened it up a bit!

Story one - Recently we went to a family reunion and "camped out" with Chris's family (staying in a cabin, in the middle of a city with running water isn't exaclty camping to me, but oh well)! While there, we were in a cabin that had 2 rooms and a fold out bed in the living room area. We had Chris's brother and his wife in one room, the three older kids in the other room, Chris and I in the living room and Celeste on the floor beside us. Bedtime is usually a chore to get through normally, can you imagine what it was putting them in bed there? One night in particular, it was pretty hard getting Tyler to stay in bed. We kept putting him in bed over and over again. Well, finally, I decided to put him in bed and stand outside their door to surprise him when he came out again. Very shortly after I closed the door, I heard Terra and James giggling and telling Tyler to "go on...go get mommy and daddy!" So, I went in there, and scolded them thoroughly...however, I really should learn to word what I say a bit better than I do now (you'd think I'd have learned that by now, after 4 years of living with a literal child)! I started wagging my finger at them and telling them that they "just can't do stuff like that, it is rude and awful and you just CAN'T do that!" To which James replied, "Oh yes we caaaan!" Little imp!

Story two - Many times when I go out into public when it's just the kids and me, I get a lot of comments about how I "sure have your hands full, don't you?!" Most of them made pretty snide with a nose all wrinkled. Well, yesterday I went to the store, got all the kids out of the car and started walking inside, arguing with Terra almost the whole way. I finally stopped and very sternly asked Terra if she wanted to go and sit in the car and wait for the rest of us to get done shopping, she sulkily said no and calmed down for a minute, so we continued on to the door. One of the employees was out taking a smoke break and said, "my, my, don't YOU have your hands full (and then under her breath, 'should've planned that one better')." Terra thought she'd use this opportunity to complain to the lady, and normally, I'd stop her and tell her not to bother that person, but, since they were rude, I thought I'd just keep quiet and keep walking. Terra said, yes, my mom's hands are full, see, she's carrying Celeste, and because she's carrying Celeste, she won't carry the rest of us. She's not that strong, only my daddy is!" Leave it to kids...

Story three - My cat, I swear, is half skunk. SHE STINKS SO BAD, especially if you startle her. She was in the house wandering around and all of a sudden both Terra and James came running in to me telling me that Ariel had pooped out in their play room. I rolled m eyes and thought, oh great! So I asked them where she messed and they said, "We don't know, cuz the poops are hiding!" I immediately sat down and tried not to laugh, knowing full well that she'd probably been sitting under the couch and passed gas, and that's what they were smelling. So we chased her back to her "domain" and went back to the play room and search for the mess, which, miraculously, we couldn't smell anymore!

Story four - We were looking on craigslist.com and found someone giving away manure, all we had to do was go get it and load it ourselves. So we loaded up the kids, attached the trailer to the suburban and went on our way to go get it. Chris and I started shoveling it onto the trailer. Terra got out and came to talk to us and immediately held her nose.
(Terra) "What is that smell?!"
(Chris) "It's horse poo!"
(Terra looks completely disgusted.)
(Sandi) "It's not JUST horse poo, it's MAGIC horse poo! It'll make the garden and flowers grow all big and pretty!"
(Terra, wrinkling up her nose.) "Ew!"
I don't think she was all that impressed with our "magic horse poo."