Being invited into someone else’s family is like watching a reality TV show. You know the people, you get to sit back and be entertained and there are clear moments of truth that cast light on your own life. We’ve just spent dinner and breakfast with our old friends Amazing Mom and Christmas Pudding Dad. The last time we had met they had one sprog, now they have four wonderful healthy fun-loving game-playing kids.
It’s a household where there is always someone talking, laughing or fighting. Sometimes all three at the same time. A home where the washer and dryer is always running, the playroom creeps into every corner of the house and shoes are constantly being outgrown. Where imagination runs wild, crafts are done, toys are broken then put together again. It is a place of raw beauty and reminds me of my own crazy messy family.
Watching the kids – minecraft, sweet tooth, eyeball and Spider-Man – at play today was a trip down memory lane. Growing up with three sisters can be described with every adjective in the book. There was never enough room, yet we all managed to create our own space. Meals were at the dining table, but it was like feeding time at the zoo. Noise was a constant – whining, screaming, shushing, negotiating – and smiles could turn into floods of tears and back again in mere seconds. New alliances and enemies made, battles own and lost. Yet at the end of the day blood is always thick.
In the midst of growing up with all this crazy I remember wishing for order and neatness, matching plates and cutlery, and non-plastic cups. That perfect family you would see in the movies that would make civilized polite conversation, then listen to each other’s reply. That other grass lawn seemed so green, yet now I would trade it all in a heartbeat.
Today was a time warp circa the 80’s. Dear friends, enjoy sitting on your big green couch making rainbow loom jewelry, playing with marbles, setting up tower after tower of Jenga on a Saturday morning.
Cherish the scrap fights, button pushing and wearing of pajamas late into the day. For one day your siblings may be scattered to the four corners of the world and even endless sessions on Skype cannot recapture those magic moments where you live on top of each other and anything you say or do will be forgiven in a heartbeat. A time when moments would weave seamlessly together and life felt messy in a good way.
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