This week has been a week of self reflection. Since moving back to Texas from California, we have discovered that under the fine layer of sophistication that we tried to maintain around friends out West,lies the real Texas redneck demeanor that we tried to ignore is the real us.
The last 9 days, 13 hours and 48 seconds (but who is counting) we have had adult kids and grandkids staying with us. When we went to the airport to pick up the 2 older darlings, 12 and 4, we were filled with excitement that we would show them the finer things of living in the great metropolitan city of Dallas. The rest of the group wasn’t showing up for 2 more days so that would give us time to have grandparently influence that would hopefully teach them about great restaurants, museums and parks that were a kid’s dream. We are 9 days into this and we have yet to visit a museum, park or fine restaurant, unless you count Chick Fila.
Last night we truly realized that our dreams of teaching refinement had come to a halt. As Jaden the 12 year old, has an ankle the size of a basketball since kicking a punching bag with his foot and missing, hitting the base, Jodi and I decided that we needed a break from waiting hand and foot on Jaden, laying on the couch with his foot covered with ice bags. We decided to take Noah outside to get some fresh air. He had been stuck in the house all day and we thought maybe getting him outside would alter his mood for the good, plus ours in that we wouldn’t have Micky Mouse Clubhouse playing in the background.
Since Randy and I live in a community of townhomes that only have courtyards with no yards, we have taken to sitting out back in the driveway. It is much cooler in the back, as we get the wind and the kids have the ally to play (well as long as we are there to watch for speeding cars going back and forth out of the driveways that line the ally).
We drag our lawn chairs out and Noah(who is 2) proceeds to point to the van, indicating that he wants all the doors to the gray minivan open. Jodi allows him to do this, hoping that he will sit and watch his video in the van, giving us a chance to just sit and visit for a few minutes. We look down and see that Noah has brought out the training potty and sat it down at the back of the van. Apparently he had set it out without us knowing it and was sitting on it when cars were driving by. We thought the neighbors were just being really friendly and smiling when all the while they were watching Noah sitting on the potty in the driveway with us sitting in our lawn chairs with our glasses of tea. Jodi looks over at me and says, “mom, we are now officially rednecks”. We quickly shut up the doors to the van, brought the chairs into the garage, emptied out the training potty and ran in the house before anymore neighbors drove by.
Randy and I are quickly running out of places that we are welcome to live. We have bought an Arkansas map and am planning a trip to scout out our new residence. We are hoping that we fit it a little better there than Frisco.
Chocolate Castles as wel 