Welcome to our house. We currently have a total of 9 people
residing within. (2 adults, 5 children, my mother and her live-in
help) Yes it is a big house, but as you might well imagine not big
enough.
We have had this trip planned since last June and all were very
excited. The grandparents were not due to arrive from Vegas until the
day before the trip, but in a fit of unparalleled brilliance Jeff
decided that they simply could not miss Thanksgiving or Jeffy’s 3rd
birthday. Thus they arrived one week to the day early.
The morning they were to arrive I lazed around the house, surfed the
internet, watched some TV and then asked Jeff if he wanted to go and get
some lunch.
“I cant, I have to be here.”
I must have given him a weird look because he gave me a weird look right back…
“What? Why do you have to be here?” My memory apparently is failing in my old age.
“My parents”…..long pause from him, continued blank stare from me
“My parents are coming" (pause) "in an hour…. Did you forget?”
Apparently so. As my jaw dropped to the floor, he reached over and replaced it gently.
“What do you mean they are coming today?” Reality had shifted in my
brain and I became certain they were arriving tomorrow on Thanksgiving.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Somehow I thought that long conversation we engaged in last night might
have clued you in.” Sarcasm, just one of his many talents.
“Yes but when you saw me just sitting around the house not doing
anything, shouldn’t THAT have given you clue that I didn’t know what I
was doing? ”
“Well yes, I was kind of wondering about it but since we just talked
about it less than 12 hours ago I figured you knew what you were
doing.”
Yes, well he's never thought I knew what I was doing in the past, why on earth did he start now?
I became a blur racing from one room to another in an unbridled cleaning
frenzy. Clothes were flying through the air, loosely aimed at the
hamper, dishes were sailing into the dishwasher sideways, the hall
closet door was open and toys were piling in faster than the eye could
see. In less than an hour the house was practically presentable.
Just as I was collapsing on the sofa the doorbell rang and in swept the
in-laws. Grandma Dee-Dee flung her arms around me and pressed my face
into her ample bosom. “Oh..Oh…” cluck cluck “Oh my its so good to see
you” cluck cluck “Oh I just missed you so much” cluck cluck
I became woozy as her perfume overwhelmed me.
Smiling and gagging I disengaged my self and ushered them into the house.
Thus began one week of preparation, one week of grandparents sitting in
the den watching football 12 hours a day and one week of “Who on earth
thought taking all these people to Disneyworld with us was a good
idea?”.