The Girl Who Came to Dinner

Lexi asked me if her friend, Brooke, could stay for dinner tonight. Ordinarily, my response is, "Sure! The more, the merrier." However, Brooke had never eaten over here before. She only has one brother who is twenty years old. I glanced at Clay who was supposed to be setting the table. He had a stack of plates on his head and he was purposely walking into the wall.

"Are you sure you want to have Brooke stay? Maybe she should leave now while she's still sane."

"What, Mom?"

"I said, maybe she should leave now before it rains."

Brooke ended up staying, but I don't think she was prepared for the insanity chaos lively dinner conversation that goes on in this house.

After taking a bite of his pizza, Clay jumped down from the table, ran to the garbage can, spit his mouthful of pizza in the trash and exclaimed, "This tastes like a raccoon!" I don't know where Clay's been eating lately, but I'm pretty sure raccoon's never been on the menu at my house.

This made Lexi's friend crack up. Because my kids had a captive audience (Really, we tied her up so she wouldn't run away, screaming.), they took this opportunity to act like barbarians show off um, entertain her.

Lexi's friend, Brooke, was talking, telling us how she scraped her arm. She'd been hiding behind a tree, waiting to jump out and scare Lex and Clay. When she jumped from behind the tree, she scratched her arm on the trunk. Brooke continued, "My mom says that's karma."

Clay asked, "What's karma?"

Brooke started to explain. "Karma is when you do good things and good things happen to you. And when you do something bad, bad things happen to you."

Austin knew what she was talking about, but feigned ignorance just to be a pain tease her. "What? You get caramel if you do something good?" he asked.

"Not caramel," Brooke corrected him, "karma!"

"Ohhhh," Austin said as if he understood her now. "Caramel. So, if I do something good, will you give me caramel?"

"No!" Brooke squealed.

Clay piped up. "What's caramel?"

"Have you ever had a Twix bar? It's what's inside. Caramel," she explained.

"I'm going to do something good so I can get some caramel!" Clay said excitedly.

I sat there, shaking my head at my sons who were purposely teasing Lexi's poor friend. "I'll tell you what karma is, boys. It's when you tease a little girl and you don't get to watch TV for a week."

"Ohhhh, that kind of karma!" they said, finally enlightened.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn was taking us on a trip to the zoo with assorted animal impressions. "Baaa baaaa."

I noticed that something was written on the inside of Savannah's wrist. It looked like a tattoo. "What's on your wrist?" I asked.

"It says love". Savannah held up her arm for me to see.

"Interesting. So, who do you love?" I asked.

"No one!" Savannah insisted.

"What? You don't even love me?" I inquired, all sad-like.

Lexi jumped up and said, "I love you, Mom! I love you more than hot chocolate!" (Everyone knows that's the highest honor, of course.)

Clay started singing. "Sail, sail, sail three ships, gently on the sea!"

Brooklyn interrupted. "We learned a song at school! There are witches in the air...

"...the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria..."

"...on Halloween night..."

Lexi joined in the sing-along. "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now I need..."

"...count them, one, two, three."

"...Boo!"

Brooke looked from person to person and declared, "Your family disturbs me."

I don't think she'll be coming back for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't forget to enter to win four tickets to Legoland Discovery Center Chicago HERE!

And for a chance to win $100 gift card from BlogHer, enter HERE!