Ahhh...the joys and excitement of Dress Up For Dinner Night. It has truly become a night the kids look forward to with bated breath. And if truth be told, so do Chuck and I. When we give them the green light to go ahead and dress up, watch out, the energy in this house is contagious. This week, our theme was food. Bennett suggested it and everyone thought it would be a great idea. Turns out - he was right. And to top it off, my Mom was in town to also partake in the drama. She says she's not very creative - I beg to differ. We take creative license to an extreme around here.Remember, the rules state, "each person, no matter his/her age, is solely responsible for his/her own costume, make-up and props". This is important to know when understanding the kids "food choices". Let me introduce my family: First of all, I'm the talking strawberry, I'm standing next to a little brown chocolate bar, who is standing next to a red Mike n Ike piece of candy who is standing next to an orange fish on a plater with an apple in it's mouth. All the children are standing around their favorite asparagus. And last but not least, no, my husband did not get lost from a nativity scene, he is in fact, a tortilla with guacamole and salsa dripping out.
So there we were, a content, happy, all-be-it very weird family seated around the dinner table enjoying our feast. However, we noticed a small oversight - we had forgotten to close the blinds. For whatever reason, we are extra self conscious when it comes to the blinds being open on DUFDN. And we all pinky swear that we will not, under any circumstances open the door for any reason if someone should happen to knock on it during our blessed event. Duh!! It would sure help to close the blinds first, so that when somebody does happen to knock on the door, they can't see the entire family sitting down at the table ignoring them.
First of all, let me state that NO ONE (that we know) EVER KNOCKS ON OUR DOOR. That is, until we least expect it. It started with the door bell. It rang and we all froze. Like that was going to accomplish anything. Then we heard a knock. Odd. Who would be knocking on our door during this time of the night. The kids were just itching to run to the door to find out. We figured it was a neighbor just coming to the door to ask the boys to play. He might get his feelings hurt this once, but there was no way we were going to open that door!
Then my tortilla speaks, "It's kinda silly of us just sitting here when, whoever is at the door can see me here at the table just ignoring them." So, we did what any normal parent would do - we sent one of the kids to the door. Gavin went first, turned on the outside light, peeked outside and closed the door again. With his reconnaissance mission complete, he came back and concurred that yes, someone was indeed standing outside our door. Obviously, he felt no need to talk to this person, or even invite them in. He just shut the door.
Well, Bennett will stand for none of that, so he races out of his seat to go make the person at the door feel more comfortable and welcome. He runs outside (because the person is now walking back towards their car) gets a good look at who it is, comes back in, shuts the door (with the poor, poor soul still outside) and informs us that it is indeed someone we know.
Oh my gosh!!! This isn't supposed to happen. People we know aren't supposed to see us this way. I mean, a picture is one thing, but live and in person?! They're going to know how really crazy we are. So, swallowing my pride, I get up from the table to go to the door and apologize for her getting the door slammed in her face twice. I then stutter and stammer trying to explain why I'm dressed up like Strawberry Shortcake. I'm glad I was already wearing red because I turned every shade of red there is, so it just blended in.
Thank God this was a friend who totally understood and laughed with us, not at us (I think). She even acted interested and asked the children all about their costumes. She really didn't act the least bit surprised because she said she'd seen past pictures and had been following all our escapades on my blog. How much weirder would that have been if she had no clue we ever did this?? I hate to think of the consequences...the word CPS comes to mind.
Anyways, I guess the moral of the story would be: When you least expect it, something will happen. Therefore, be ready to laugh at yourself, because you can't be ready for what will happen, but you can control how you will react to it.
