After church, my lovely family, decked out in their beautiful Christmas attire, strolled out of the church and made their way across the parking lot to our van. I watched from the church steps as my husband unlocked the door and my daughters and son climbed in.
As I approached the van, I heard a 6 year old girl screaming at the top of her lungs. The screams could be heard for miles and echoed loudly off of the church steeple. A chill ran up my back, fluttered across my shoulders and raced up the nape of my neck - where there it sent a chill through my body so cold that it could have frozen a raw chicken in two minutes flat.
I looked into the back seat and there on the floor was the six your old girl, in her beautiful velvet Christmas dress, hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head and held beautifully with a black velvet bow, and lovely black sequined shoes on her six year old feet. Straddled on top of her, also lying on the the floor, was the 10 year old boy, in his black church suit with the crisp pink shirt and gray speckled tie. They looked up at me, as I stood in the door - my children.
I closed the door, the two children still sprawled out on the floor, climbed quietly into my seat up front, closed my door and then screamed, "YOU ARE GONNA' GET IT WHEN WE GET HOME," to my boy child, now climbing like a little zoo-monkey - into his seat. Across the aisle from him was my 6 year old daughter, crying pathetically because she had been trampled to near death by her zoo-monkey-brother trying to get into the car before her ... and her beautiful bun was no longer nice and neat and pretty - but now a stringy mess of hair flowing down her back. She could barely catch her breath through all the sobs and tears.
I turned back in my seat with a huff and looked over at my husband, who was clueless as to why I was so angry and simply said, loudly, "HE IS GONNA' GET IT WHEN WE GET HOME." My husband shook his head in acknowledgement.
In the back seat, the little zoo-monkey boy kept saying, as we drove away from the church - away from the other civilized families and their darling little church-going children, "What do you mean, 'Get it?'" And I would not answer. "What do you mean - just explain to me what you mean, 'Get it,' so I'll know what to expect." I still did not answer and was very much enjoying seeing him sweat, for a change. "Come on ... what do you mean?" he begged and begged and begged.
On the upside ... Sometimes I just want to wring their necks and then sometimes I just want to break out in hysterical monkey laughter - "What do you mean, Get It?" - he was so scared and he must have asked 15 times - like I was going to string him up and hang him from a banana tree or something - I was so pleased with myself that, after 10 years with this zoo-child, that I had actually said something that scared him to death - said something that really had him worried - it was a very proud moment. (*sigh*)