Church Prank

As a family, we make it a point to regularly attend church.

My daughter looks sweet and cute, but she has a dark gift that I suffer from on those rare occasions I have to miss a Sunday service: she fills out a volunteer card in my name and signs me up for everything. She has volunteered me for nursery duty, softball, technology thingy, and men's Bible study. I just get a picture of the card with all the boxes checked.

I don't miss church often.

Oh Dear.

"Are we concerned about Drake's habit of climbing things?" I asked Mike as we waited for our table at the restaurant. We had taken the kids on a short getaway in the Ozarks for spring break, and the day was finally sunny so we opted to wait outside.
"Should we be?"
"Well, it seems dangerous."
"Kids like to climb. It's normal."
"Yeah, but I saw a picture on Instagram of him at the top of a flag pole."
"How did he climb a flag pole?"
"With his incredible arm strength and low body fat."
"Impressive."
"He also told me that he climbed all the elementary schools in West Des Moines one night last week."
"He'll get in trouble if he gets caught doing that."
"He might also get hurt."
"Mom!" Drake shouted. "Look!"
I looked around but couldn't see him anywhere.
"Where are you?" I shouted.
"Look up," his voice said from the rafters of an antique store Mike and I were walking past.
"I'm beginning to see what you mean," Mike said.

Tail of Trouble

Since it was well below freezing outside, I was surprised to hear excited voices coming from the neighbor's yard. Nobody wants to play outside when breathing causes frostbite of the lungs. So, out of curiosity, I peeked out my window to see who would be risking death and amputation of limb to play outdoors.

Then I saw three people standing by their car screaming and wildly waving their arms.

"Are they fighting?" I thought. And then I played out what my role would be if my neighbors were brawling with each other. Should I run to their driveway and plead for peace? But since we live in the country their driveway is quite a long run away from my house. Should I call the police? Then I opened my curtain and looked closer.

Just as I determined that these violent people were too far gone for my help, a silver fluffy tail protruded from the driver's side window.

"Get out of my car!" a frantic girl screamed. "Go home!!

My dog loves car rides.

My dog is on the gigantic side.

It is nearly impossible to extract him from a car once he is inside.

And he is usually muddy.

I am not proud.

Balloon Injury

Things are pretty predictable without siblings.

Makenna got all dressed up and went to homecoming. The couple looked glamorous and gorgeous.

When the glamorous couple returned, they brought a bunch of balloons from the dance with them. Within a nanosecond the balloons were confiscated by Makenna's brothers and their friends, and a game of popping the balloons commenced.

However the balloons did not pop as easily as you might expect. So, Drake, who was of course sporting bright red hair, decided to crush the balloons with his body and pop them all at once. But they did not pop under the weight of his body, red hair and all. So his friend, Jacob, helped out by adding his weight to the balloon crushing experience.

Drake soon learned that when balloons are crushed in such a way, they leave a mysterious injury of horizontal red scrapes that cover the skin from armpit to waist.




I had a lot of questions: Why do boys have to destroy things? Why are balloons so hard to pop? Why do they have to make such a terrifying noise when they pop? How does a person receive an injury from a soft, round balloon? Lucky, those aren't the questions I asked out loud.


"Drake, does that hurt?"
"Yeah, a lot," he answered.
"Maybe you shouldn't do that anymore."
"Oh," he told me, "it's totally worth it."