Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Family Home Evening


Since we have been living with my parents, we've been having FHE with my family. Honestly it is a riotous affair. Last night went something like this:

Opening song, played by my 15yr brother on the piano, fortissimo in 6/8 time while my 10yr sister tried to lead it in 4/4 time. You couldn't hear the singing anyway.

Opening prayer by 17yr brother in 3 point pose (head, knees and feet all touching the floor) while his bright orange boxers are sticking out from his basketball shorts. The minute we all say "amen" my dad, 15yr brother, and 10yr sister all rush to give him an atomic wedgie.

"Lesson" ready by 15yr brother from the New Era. His reading-out-loud skills are not so refined, and some of the freudian slips in his performance gave us all lots of reasons to laugh. At the end of his lesson he concluded that the moral of the story was that "we don't just have to look up to big people, we can look up to little people too.." stirring.

My dad pulls out his trusty lap-top and has the entire family complete a Dr. Phil based personality test power-point style. I think the whole point of the activity was to point out that my mother has an extremely cautious personality and he wanted us all to have a chance to giggle when her "category" was read. Feelin' the love?

Things start to get a little more serious. My dad asks my mom if there is anything she wants to share before we have our closing prayer. She gives him that look that consists of laser beams burning through your skull. I point out that obviously she does have something to tell us, or he wouldn't have asked. My mother does not like attention.

It turns out that my mother finally went to a doctor (first time in 10 years). After giving birth to 5 children, and having at least 3 of those deliveries be remarkably traumatic for her poor body (stage 4 episiotomy, broken tailbone, and hemorrhaging) she is understandably in need of some surgery. Everybody but 10yr sister was able to figure out what was going on pretty quickly. Okay, well 15yr brother thought she was having her appendix out for a while until 17yr brother hit him over the head and said, "no, it's her uterus dummy!". Then 17yr brother took it upon himself to explain things so that 10yr sister could understand. "You know how you've always wanted a little brother or sister? Well this is going to make it so that will never happen." 10yr sister gets a horrified look in her eyes and says, "Mommy, they're not going to neuter you!?" I guess you have to know that my dad is a veterinarian to get how hilarious that was. We laughed and laughed until we were all in pain. Even my mom laughed until she cried. Great moment in our family history.

So my mom is getting surgery on the 30th of this month, she wanted to get it over with before she chickened out. She'll be flat on her back for a while, and unable to do much physically even after she's out of bed. That will be very interesting, potentially disastrous. *sigh*

Guess who needs to take a belly picture before her belly button pops out? Me. I've been meaning to take one every week, so far I have taken 1. I hang my head in disappointment. At least I can wear all of my maternity clothes now.

4 comments:

hairyshoefairy said...

Your FHE is hilarious! Isn't it nice to finally have clothes that mostly fit again?! My parents hound me for pics since we don't live by them. I've still only taken three, but I also haven't really shown much til the last 3 weeks or so. Now I think it'll be more worth it to me to take some. Isn't the belly button thing so funny?

--jeff * said...

dean duncan once commented that family life is best if we can avoid high-conflict situations like fhe.

thank you for providing a wonderful commentary with a whimsical outlook on the realities of family life. i laugh with you in your story and my sympathies go out to you mom as well.

good work, mle.

Stacy said...

Great story about your mom getting neutered. I laughed, really hard, right along with the rest of your family!

Lily said...

"Mommy, they're not going to neuter you!?"

Kids can provide much needed comic relief. My thoughts go out to your mom.

Great blog, by the way. I'll be stopping back soon!

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