Per my earlier post you know that today started off as a classic crappy
Monday, literally.  This post is to tell you that it ended with one of
those sublime evenings you hope to remember forever.

It began with dinner.  Nothing special; ham, peas, pineapple and some Kool-Aid to drink.  Then we started talking.

Erin, my daughter, is 11 and she was on a roll.  She is renowned for mixing
metaphors and for being a step late on getting the joke, but then
out-laughing everyone.  She cracks herself up in the middle of jokes
and can’t finish them.  She’s brutally honest and oblivious to that
fact.  She is our catalyst.

I can’t even remember what we were talking about, but she mixed
something up and it got Justin, our 8 year old, laughing so hard I
thought he was going to puke.  These laughs are generally reserved just
for us.  I’m not sure how many of his aunts, uncles, cousins or even
grandparents have seen this laugh.  It’s a thing of beauty, something I
wish I could do.

Then Michael, our 12 year old resident comedian jumped into the mix and
it was a full-on riot.   Michael’s a goof, and Erin’s antithesis.  He
gets the jokes before they’re finished and holds his tongue when he sees
"the look" in his parents’ eyes.

Celeste sat back with that bemused look she gets when they are this way
and watched her fourth kid, me, jump into the fun.  We wandered into
gross joke territory, talked about kids from our respective schools who
can pull spaghetti out of their noses and kids who have milk shoot out
their noses when they laugh.  Then it was mean teachers and who knows
what else.  Celeste explained a joke or two to Erin and we kept laughing.

It was a half-hour of paradise.

Then the truly remarkable happened.  We asked Erin and Justin to clean
the kitchen and Michael to finish his homework while we went to work
out.  Upon returning we found a spotless kitchen, a new table cloth on
the table and homework completed.

Celeste and I talked about dinner tonight and when I said these are the
moments I hope I never forget she said, "I hope these are the moments
the kids never forget."  As always she is so right. 

What that this would be our legacy.

P.S. Don’t tell him I said so but I think Michael is a budding author.
His assignment was a (very) short story and if you go for military bugs
slaughtering each other I think you’d like it.  Of course if you have
a soft spot for caterpillars you’ll probably lose your lunch.  He’s asleep now, but if he wakes up and gives me permission I’ll upload a scan and link to it.