Picture a house filled with family. Brothers and a sister, with their spouses, and their children gathered together for an evening of fun. The adults are in the dinning room sitting around the table catching up on all the latest news. The children are in the bedroom playing. The youngest is in diapers and the oldest is around nine years old. We know that there were at least seven children and maybe up to nine or eleven. We can't agree on who all was involved, but we do know the room was filled with little children. We could have started our own day care, but the adults were not supervising or the ending of this story would have been a happy one.
We are not absolutely sure of what happened with the little ones, but it is said there was a bushel of tomatoes and a pair of suspenders involved, and what looked like a little pile of creamed sweet potatoes on the wall. You are already putting this story together aren't you?
Aunt Gladys and Uncle Tim had just purchased a brand new mattress for one of the beds in that small room. The children had no mercy.
I am not going to point blame at anyone of the children, we were all equally guilty, except the one in diapers. I'm sure he didn't know how the "sweet potatoes" got on the wall. The rest of us deserved what we got, but for the life of me, I can't remember if we were punished or if our parents were just glad to get us out of the room to clean it up.
My mother told me that the room was a mess. Uncle Buford thought the yellowish/orange pile on the wall was sweet potatoes, but upon examination of some on the tip of his finger and a sniff proved otherwise. The mattress had to be carried out in a sheet. (When she told this, I could just hear "Taps" being played as they carried it out of the house.) Poor mattress died before it was able to give comfort to a sleeping child.
Mama never told me the exact cause of its demise, but it was probably soaked with the tomatoes which were propelled through the air by a pair of suspenders hooked to the bedpost. The projectiles hit the wall and slowly coated it as it made its way to the bed.
It is me again, Lord, thanking you for the love of family even when we may not deserve it.
A little Georgia Wisdom: Leaving children to entertain themselves may result in creative destruction!
This reminds me of the time when Sandy, Stacy, Dianne, and of course me were @ Aunt Jeanies and we were in the chicken house, well we took many, many flats of eggs and threw them in the big fans hanging up and would dodge flying eggs. We were having a blast! Why did we think they wouldnt notice broken eggs everywhere is beyond me! Bad day for some mischievious kids!
ReplyDeleteChildren don't think beyond the moment sometimes. when you are having fun, it is easy to get caught up in the moment. I'm sure you all were enjoying the moment. Too funny.
ReplyDeleteOur Aunts and Uncles numbered NINE. All of them were married and had two to five children, some even had more than five. When they all got together it was such fun...for us cousins! We were all ages, and very imaginative! If it could be done, we tried it. We fixed anything that was broken, worked on everything! But what we did to fix...our parents told us to leave it alone next time. Then, as young ones do we would find something else to "check out." I am sure our parents couldn't belive what they saw and smelled in our "play room" that day. As we have all aged, most of our parents are gone now.
ReplyDeleteBut, don't think it all ended, the get togethers have continued, OUR kids have done what we did in that room...They have paid us back for all of the little and big messes we made...And to make it even better...Our grandchildren, and cousins are multiple. Our large family has even grown more over these years...but the excitement will never end.