Author Archives: redelephantblogger

clean mouths and broken spatulas.

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sibling1

“what’s the worst punishment you can remember as a kid?”

my kids asked me this recently. probably after receiving the naughty step or grounding.

so, I didn’t answer them truthfully. they are kids. they have no concept of some things.
so, I searched my brain for something tame and kid friendly…

“drinking dish soap”

they were horrified. oops, I guess that isn’t tame. I tried again.

“having spatula’s broken on my butt”

again, not a good choice.

“having my nail polish taken away?”

whew…that was met with horror. of a good kind.

My kids just aren’t ready for the hard stuff.
Now, my childhood is over. It’s done. and we have no intention of dragging anything out that is unhealthy.

But… we view our consumption of vast amounts of dish soap as funny.

If we said something inappropriate, sassed off, or any number of things we had to drink dish soap. of the liquid variety.
Lucky for me, it rarely happened.
Not so for my brothers.
It’s a wonder they ever got sick…that had to have had the cleanest mouths around!

And the number of spatula’s broken on my brothers behinds must be a record! (do they keep that sort of record)
It was funny.
See, you can only “spank” so hard with a cooking spatula. They often bend (sending us into giggles…NOT a good idea when you are supposed to be acting apologetic). They deliver hardly any pain (again…don’t EVER mention this) and best of all…
they break.
the little flippy end just flies right off!
So, you are in the middle of a whupping with a cooking spatula pretending to be in pain and whoooooppp there goes the spatula. You try not to giggle. It’s darn funny.
I had a brother that had so many spatulas broke on his behind that I think we started keeping a record. And he was proud that he held the title.

So, although my kids don’t understand the humor…we are able to find humor.
Clean mouths and broken spatulas.
the stuff are childhood was made of.

Mhmm…mhmm…that’s nice…

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I was recently on the phone with my hit-man brother.  If you don’t know who that is, look it up here.

Anyway, he thinks his life is REALLY interesting.  Which it is.  But he also thinks that I  REALLY want to hear all about it.

Which,  I really don’t.

But he doesn’t really take the hint well, and so he called me up to spend over an hour telling me about his newest martial arts lessons with this really awesome guy who knows all sorts of things.  And he goes on and on and on.  And he isn’t even talking about awesome new punches or kicks that can inflict pain without leaving marks.  Nope, nothing that cool.  He just talks about this different way to clench your fist that somehow does… something…Blah, blah, blah.

I mean, over an hour!

Becuase that is the most important thing in my life, hearing all about how my brother is breaking the law with more and more ease.

I’m going to start screening his calls.

Elevator Farts

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I don’t know how this started…

Okay, I’m actually pretty sure it’s Sibling 1’s husband who is the culprit…

But whenever our family gets together and must use elevators (which, thankfully, is infrequent) we fart.

Yep.

Right before the doors open, everyone is instructed to let one loose.

It’s loud.

And smelly.

And then we get off the elevator like nothing happened.

she’s moving. again. maybe.

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sibling1so, I just realized today that perhaps I should mention that my mom says she is moving.
she told me quite some time ago. and I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.

but, as I thought about it I realized that in most families it would be big news.

not ours

why?

well, there’s the problem of saying something and never following through.
she does that….alot.

then there’s the problem of wanting my help.
and it’s Christmas. I don’t have time. and there are multiple adult siblings living with her. let them (yes, I realize I sound mean)

And then there’s the problem of having super high expectations of things working out PERFECTLY.

And then there’s the problem of not having a job in the new town.

I think of those things.
I guess I’m the only one.

Anyways, I thought I would mention it.

Because, we are having full disclosure. (well, except for not having real names and details. no biggee)
I’m hoping it happens.
not holding my breath.

Facebook

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So over Thanksgiving break, Sibling 1 was complaining about how her Facebook news feed often gets overrun with updates from our other siblings. 

Stupid updates.

Like “I’m so exhausted from working so hard!”, when we know this sibling is actually lying at home all day watching TV.

And I laughed at Sibling 1, saying I didn’t have that problem at all. 

I assumed I had “unfollowed” their comments.

I was wrong.

They unfriended me.

I’m hurt 🙂

the game.

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One to many times I recall sitting at dinner in my cute little house with my cute little husband and cute little kids for supper.
No, that’s not the part that I recall with angst.

It’s the sight we saw out our window as we ate.

The sight of little girls sneaking across the corn fields between my house and theirs.

running away

They would make a game of it. And we would play along. We would pretend not to see them. We would let them sneak up on the house. In the house. And ignore them as much as possible.

So we could say…”no, I haven’t seen them yet. Yes, I’m sure they are on there way here. Yes, we will tell them to come home.”

Knowing that the brief game was their way of coping with the crazies they were heading back to.
And knowing that soon we would have to intervene.

But for that moment…it was just a game.

You may be related to the Red Elephant Family if…

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10. Your family get-togethers are half-hearted or non-existent.

9. You know nothing about music or movies from your generation.

8. The most important area in your home is your kitchen (and knives are the first thing you buy to fill it).

7. You think children are overrated (can you blame us?!).

6. You claim digestive difficulties so you can head to the bathroom for “alone time”.

5. You don’t hug.

4. You think “moving-day” must be a National holiday.

3. You hear a nasty rumor about a sibling, and brush it off as mom-being-mom.

2. You hate oatmeal.

1. You secretly scheme to put your mom and estranged father in the same nursing home 🙂 (sibling #1 piping in…IT’S True. We do that!! And love it :))

Lawsuits

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Once upon a time…our mom tried to sue my work.

I guess that isn’t completely rediculous.  I mean, people sue each other all the time in the U.S.  She claimed that she stepped on a nail in the parking lot one time when she was coming to visit me, and it caused her nerve damage in her foot that had to be fixed via several surgeries.

A good reason to sue if she had been telling the truth.

But she lied.  I was with her the WHOLE time she visited.  No nails. No blood.  No screaming.  She drove off unharmed.

At some point before she got home, she’d managed to do everything she claimed happened at my worksite. (Sibling 1 has a great story about that!)  I have no idea how, she apparently has mad skills in the destruction category.

So she gets a lawyer, contacts my work, and threatens to file a suit if they don’t pay her.

My bosses were afraid to ask me about it,  but were really thankful they did.  ‘Cause I laughed out loud.

I mean; really?!

When I called my mom to ask her what the heck she was thinking, she actually said, “You remember, the nail that got in my foot…maybe you don’t, I didn’t want to make a big deal about it at the time.”

When I didn’t budge, she decided not to sue.

Childhood games…good times

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Coming from a large family has it’s advantages, one of the biggest being the awesome games we were able to play growing up.  I mean, how many kids can play kick ball or baseball without having to recruit the entire neighborhood?

Here’s my personal list of gaming favorites:

6. Mailman:  I really have no idea why we liked this game so much.  We would all just hole up in separate rooms and designate one person to carry letters back and forth between us.  That’s it!  It occupied us for hours at a time.

5. Sneaky-sneakiness:  I don’t know if an actual game was involved in this, but we would sneak around our property all the time.  We would wade through marshes, army crawl in the mud, do awesome summersaults between buildings, and anything else we thought was “sneaky”.

4. Rubber band wars: We would buy a huge bag of rubber bands, flip the couches in the living room over, and go crazy.  The younger ones (yep, that meant me!) had the mission of entering no-man’s land to collect fallen missiles to bring back to our separate strong holds.

3. Snowball fights: We used to play this great hostage version where one team would hole up in a barn or other outbuilding and try to hit everyone on the other team before the hostage was freed.  If the hostage was hit the game ended with both teams losing.  I tried to be the hostage (snowballs hurt!).

2. Lawyer & Wedding: You’ve already heard about that here.

1. RISK:  I know, this is a strange game for young children to enjoy playing, but we did!  We would set the game up on the porch and spend days playing… (insert evil, dramatic video game voice from one of those shoot-em-up death games)…”global domination“.  It was epic.

a dress and a tricycle.

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The girls wore dresses as children.
It was part of our “religion”.
Nothing against that part of religion.
Okay, that’s a lie. I think it’s stupid.
But…people believe what they believe. And it’s their right.

But…an image that is both funny and sad…

A 4 year old little girl… a tomboy through and through.
Desperately wanting to pedal her tricycle across the sidewalk.
Impaired by her dress. Getting in the wheels.

No, she can’t put on pants or shorts and play.

Girls wear dresses. Not drive tricycles.