Bonus Points for Effort

On Saturday night TGIM and I went on a double date with Paige and TGSheM. Naturally, we left TD home with his sisters, plus two of Paige’s girls (one TD’s age, the other a few years younger than Alli) with the somewhat optimistic idea that extra bodies in the house would help prevent any kind of sibling squabbles or blood feuds in our absence.

Hey. It could work. You don’t know.

Toward the end of the evening, however, TGIM received a phone call from home. We knew it was The Call. You know. The one where the kid calls and is all, “So… I just thought you might want to know that Hannah is sitting on Alli’s head and I think the toilet is broken, but the towels got most of it, and the smoke detector in the kitchen WORKS, if you were wondering, and no one is even listening to me”– interrupted by background screams of “Tanner’s a LIAR! Don’t LISTEN TO HIM! LIAR! LIAR! Pants on FIIIIRE!” and “Get OFF me! GET OFF! Mooooooommmmmmaaaa!”– and always ending with, “um… so when are you coming home?”

I watched TGIM take the call, trepidation creepy crawling down my back, and waited for The Response. You know. The one where the parent is like, “Is anyone bleeding? Is? Anyone? BLEEDING?!” and then, “Then WHY are you CALLING?! We’ve talked about this! Rule number one: Don’t call unless there is blood or broken body parts! Now tell Hannah to get off her sister, stay out of the bathroom, don’t go NEAR the kitchen, and we’ll be home in a bit!”

But the only response from TGIM was a grin.

“Well,” I hissed sotto voce, “what’s he saying?”

TGIM covered the phone, held it away from his mouth, and answered loudly enough for all of us to hear, “He said, ‘When are you coming home? It’s pandeminium over here!’”

He uncovered the phone and replied, “Pandeminium, eh?”–I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle–”Well, we’ll be home soon, so hang in there.”

Afterward, we all agreed. Developing a larger-than-average vocabulary mostly through reading?

As it turns out, not always optimal.