I have mentioned before that most of the kids parents are all about 10 years+ our senior. They all generally have incredible work ethics and place a very high value in academic pursuits. They love their kids and want what is best for them.
We're more of a..."do your best,-work hard,- have fun- and don't sweat the rest" kinda family. We dearly love these families, and couldn't be happier with the choice of friends that the kids have made. But occasionally it does make for some interesting contrasts!
Last Sunday after church Austin wanted to ask his good friend S. to come out to eat with us. We said "sure". And in the end we actually ended up with 7 boys at the table....and Savannah. (That child will NEVER have trouble getting a date!)
Anyway, Austin was sitting across the table from me and began taking off his jacket. He was unfolding his gigantic,long arms out of the sleeves by tugging at the end of the sleeves, and not pulling his arms away from his body. No, I don't know why.
Me: "Austin, you look retarded doing that."
Now don't go emailin' me saying how cruel this is, he DID in fact look retarded taking his jacket off that way, and we are always joking with each other this way.
So, anyway, I had told him he looked retarded. We were both laughing.When S. exclaimed:
"OH. MY. GOSH!!! MY MOM NEVER CALLS ME RETARDED!!! (gushing and smiling ear-to-ear) THIS IS SUCH A FUN FAMILY!!!!!"
Me: "You look retarded too sometimes, S. Welcome to the family."
Which should have been followed up by, " Ahem..You gonna be mentioning this to your mom??........... Your PHYSICIAN MOM???"
Well, certainly there must be SOMETHING to be said for having a thick skin, right? Surely I am contributing to the development of my children in THAT way!Right??
G'night!!
Melissa
4 comments:
Yeah. I've been desperately trying to hang on to the tails of those other "have it together" families but DH does NOT help and I'm quickly losing ground the older they get. This post was actually good for me because I have been knowing I need to "lighten up" for awhile now. Tomrorow I'm going to lighten up a lot and stop having these grand expectations. I think we'll have a lot more fun and it will put years back onto my uptight arse. haha
So ROFL at you guys - I could feel right at home at your place! My oldest has a sharp sarcastic wit - he'd love it there.
Jess (who needs to let go of the idea of sophestication LOL)
That sounds like our family, I am more uptight than Rusty, but our kids definitely have a think skin thanks to him. It does make for alot more fun though. Sometimes Rusty and the kids get going and I have to just walk away, if I say anything they all look at me and say "But we were just having fun".
Sorry, that was supposed to be thick skin.
It's nice for the other kids to see a different side of parenting. Your MOTY award is intact!
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