Monday, February 22, 2010

Out of the Mouth of Babes









Children have such
a way of keeping you humble when you want to look so much better. Let me share.
This past weekend we had a houseful of company. The mother of the college student who lives with us was the first to arrive. My aunt and uncle came a few days later.
My aunt and uncle live in a rural town out in the middle of nowhere. For entertainment my cousins and I would go swimming in their cowtank in the backyard or build mudpies in the water sloshed over the sides. Sofistication and snobbiness is not a worry here. My aunt gets me and I love being at her house.
I had not yet met our beloved college student's parents yet and they are from a larger city up North. I was a little nervous to say the least.
Back around Thanksgiving we had worked for a solid month on table manners with our little rug rats. A (then 6-year-old), 5 year old, 3 year old and 1 year old have very little table manners and we were to have an important dinner with my husband's parents and some very important people...includeing the Govenor of Arkansas. Our kids rose to the challenge quite nicely and even without naps that day and having to get dressed up and sit still for a long time, they did better than expected.
Fast forward to this past weekend when our college student's mother arrived. We were sitting at the dinner table with everyone expect for my husband who was working. My children were giddy with excitment at having someone over for dinner and were just plain goofy. I had to keep telling them to "sit still" "don't take such huge bites" "it is our time to talk," etc... when out of the blue my beloved 5-year old very seriously announced, "someone cooked drugs in our house."

I nearly choked on my food. Our college student nearly spit hers out and started giggling. Poor Ben grinned rather nervously and said hopefully, "well, they did!"
So much for first proper first impressions. Children have a way of keeping us humble.
Just so we are clear on this, we have never cooked drugs in our house. We found out last week that the house we sold 4 years ago has been condemned because the renters were cooking meth in their kitchen. Our old neighbors who we still talk to every once in a while told us of the exciting afternoon when no less than 8 police cars came screaming down the street and busted the lab.
I was sorry to hear it. I liked that little duplex that we had owned and after Sparks last night the children requested that we drive by and say goodbye one last time.

1 comment:

Wendy said...

You know, I'm sure we drove right by there when the bust was happening.

Kids-- HA!! It's so funny, looking back on it!