"Silly Mommy, seafood is for fish NOT people!"

It`s not as if it came without warning... the Marine Land commercials have been on the television for a little while now subliminally preparing us for this time of year. But somehow it still managed to creep up on me and catch me off guard. The school year has ended and summer time is upon us. As I dug through the kiddling`s back packs one last time to unload all their forgotten treasures they cleared out from their school cubbies and desks, I shook my head in amazement.... no, not at the amount of random articles of clothing they had accumulated in their school bags over the year (including 7 pairs of socks, 6 winter hats {belonging to 1 child} many mismatched gloves, and a collection of flower printed undies...just incase) what amazed me most was how quickly this school season slipped by. It seems like only yesterday I was braiding her hair and preparing The Baby for her first day of school. Has ten months really flown by without me noticing? As I washed sandwich keepers and put back packs and insulated lunch bags into the laundry I day dreamed, recollecting the first days of the school year.... all seven children climbed aboard their big yellow buses each morning and went off to school.... it was glorious..... for the first week.  Then the novelty wore off, the enthusiasm died down and the children began to rebel.

It was a Friday afternoon. The kiddlings had just gotten off the bus and homework was underway. I checked through each back pack to ensure that nothing was forgotten when I stumbled upon an interesting discovery carefully hidden under a balled up pink sweater..... how had I missed this all week????
A back pack FULL of partially eaten sandwiches!!! The culprit was Little Susan. She had decided that bologna sandwiches were no longer her favourite and so decided to hide them in her backpack to avoid having to eat them. I wonder how long she thought she would get away with this magic act before her trick was discovered?  What in the world was she thinking?
That same week as I was looking through the basement pantry for something when I happened to notice some granular substance scattered all over the floor. It was spilled over the chest that held our photo albums and covered many of the shelves, cans and jars. It was sugar! Sticky and messy. I assumed a mouse had found one of the bags of white sugar and nibbled a hole through the side but I was wrong.... When I came across the actual bag that had the "leak" I knew right away that this was NOT the work of a mouse but someone much taller without a tail. The sugar bag had been opened and gathered together at the top, it had sugar stuck to the edges of the opening...just like someone had been pouring the sugar out of the bag right into their mouth!!! There's only one way to find out the truth with seven children in a situation like this... the shock and awe method! The kiddlings were all in the swimming pool so they didn`t notice me as I approached the pool deck with my hand behind my back hiding the evidence. I asked them to all get out of the pool and line up across the deck. They complied quickly because they assumed I must have some kind of treat hidden behind my back for them .... boy were they surprised when I pulled the soggy-top sugar bag out from behind my back. I quickly scanned each pair of eye balls staring back at me. They had a variety of expressions.... some shocked, some confused, some disappointed (that it wasn`t a treat) but two pair of eyes had the expression I was looking for.....guilt. ``Alright, Daniel and Little Susan, come with me...the rest of you can go back to swimming.`I announced as I led the young offenders away for sentencing.

It wasn`t even a week later that I made another mysterious discovery in the pantry...... As I shuffled jars and cans around searching for canned tomatoes I came across a bottle of chili sauce that didn`t seem quite right. The lid wasn`t on properly and there appeared to be some chili sauce missing from the bottle. So I concealed the bottle under a dish towel and gathered the kiddlings together in the living room. Once they were lined up
With having seven children, I have learned over the years that asking the question "Who did it?" is very ineffective in our home. You can only hear "Not Me!" so many times before you choose a new method of interrogation. And ours is the Lie detector line up." Now over time the kiddlings have tried to beat the system and cheat their way through interrogation..... but like they say " the eyes are the window to the soul" and I can usually read those peepers pretty accurately.  Oh by the way, it was Little Susan (again) who pilfered the pantry and sampled the chili sauce. "It didn't even taste like chili!" she complained as I doled out her discipline.
*Here's a Few Funnies From Our House to Yours*
* "What did you do at the party?" I asked The Baby. "We played Tail on the Butt" she replied (pin the tail on the donkey)
* Shane inquired "Mom, if you scream into a pot and close the lid...if you open the lid again will you hear the scream?"
* The Baby stood in her doorway on a brown bath towel soaking up a puddle of urine on her carpet. She had an accident and was cleaning it up.  "Sorry guys, it happens!" she said to us sarcastically.
* The Baby's eye searched along the edges of her bedroom ceiling as she lay in bed. "Is Daddy Spider Legs coming?" she asked. (daddy long legs spider)
* "Mom, are there red sheep?" Nicholas queried. "No honey there aren't. Why?" I replied. "Well" he said, "How do you get different coloured wool?"
* As we sat at a restaurant eating lunch The Baby got concerned. "Uh Oh, it's buffering!" she said of the scoreboard showing on the television set overhead. (Can you tell we live in the country with a temperamental internet connection?)
* "You did a good job yelling at the kids today Grandma." The Baby complimented Grandma after she'd looked after the kiddlings for me.
* 'I don't like seafood." I explained to The Baby. "Silly Mommy, seafood is for fish NOT people!" she exclaimed.

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Happy Canada Day ~ Be Blessed,
Lucy