Can Someone Please Define Normal?

Yesterday was a normal day.

I have a lot of those.

I’ll just go ahead and highlight three examples of events or conversations that contributed to the normalness of the day.

Just three, mind you.

Three examples of normal.

(Except maybe I am not entirely sure what normal means anymore.  That’s possible.   Indeed – probable.)

Example One:

Disclaimer: Some of my children may be rapidly approaching the age when I can no longer share these stories unless I use an alias for them.  So we had better all enjoy this while it lasts.)

Piper Finn and Otto Fox were napping.  Riley was reading a book.  (Wait – that can’t be right.  I don’t actually know what Riley was doing.  So maybe she was reading a book.)

London, Mosely and Bergen were cuddling with me on the bed as we read a Just So Story by Rudyard Kipling.

(It was about the crab who controlled the sea.  Those Just So Stories are a wee bit odd – and wordy!  But the Band of Keigley laughs at them so I read them.)

(Gosh, I’m wordy tonight too.  Sort of like Kipling.  Maybe I just didn’t see enough adults today.  Or something.)

So.

Yes.

We were reading together.  Kids flopped across my legs, sprawled across the pillows, arms and feet dangling everywhere.  And then a page with an illustration appears and I announce that to the kids.  They all jump up and cram their noggins into my personal space.

After about two milliseconds (perhaps less) Bergen withdraws his head quickly and shouts, “Ewww!  What is THAT smell?”

I sniffed.  (Because that’s what we all do – right?)  And something was certainly foul.  Alarmingly foul.  Really gross.

I asked around and London started making a pretty funny face that revealed her own guilt.  And it was not hard to determine that the odor was coming from her  two-inch fingers.  “Listen, Scout.  Why do your fingers smell so funny?”  Long pause.  Weird grimaces.  (From London, of course.)

I asked again, “London.  Where have your fingers been?”

And she finally answered.

“My bum.”

Example Two:

We were driving to church.

All children are buckled in, relatively content and entertaining themselves splendidly.

Bergen stares at his baby brother and breaks out loudly into a song, “Otto is an eenie meenie miney mo lova’!”  (Stinkin’ I-95.  What have you taught my children?)

Example Three:

Disclaimer: This one is gross.  And it involves vomit.  Come on – I have six kids.  A lot of my life involves weird bodily functions.  What else can you really expect from my blog?

Lunch at the lodge today.  That’s where this little incident occurred.

Finn sat with a few summer staffers to dine so I don’t know what she actually consumed.

But I do know this.

It all looks a shade of khaki coming back up.

She walked over to my table and said, “Mom, I need to throw up.”

I guess I just don’t believe my kids when they say this.

But I offered her my cup of grape juice to catch any throw up.  (Yeah.  I really called her bluff – huh?)  She held it close and then just spit a little in it.  I figured that was that and began to work my way through a piece of chocolate cake leftover from Walter’s birthday celebration.  I was saving the icing for last.  It was green.

And then I heard the sound.

You know the sound.

The one you make right before your stomach heaves its contents right up out of your mouth.

Yes.  That sound.

I held the cup close to her chin and that little two-year-old aimed perfectly and filled my cup up with khaki-colored lunch.

“Uh.  Quick!  I need another cup or something!”

Walter dryly comments.  “Perhaps you should make your way to the bathroom”

Oh kid-less Walter.  Shows what you know.  We would never make it to the bathroom.

At this point Ben and Caleb bail from our table in a hurry, practically knocking over their chairs in an effort to remove themselves from the scene.  (Hey fellas – I don’t blame you.  Not at all.)

Leanne, who has kids so she gets it (and doesn’t even get grossed out because that is just how mothers roll, right?) grabs another cup and we make the quickest cup switch ever.  And just in time too.

Because we hear that sound again.

And the khaki flows freely.

I think poor little Finn filled three cups.  But I can’t remember exactly.  (Maybe Leanne knows.)

That’s when Walter said, quite seriously, “Hmm.  I wouldn’t have thought a cup could hold all that.”  And then, “I think I’ll go outside now.”