Children of the corny

My family and I are kinda weird.

And we're definitely very, very loud.

In fact, I think the noise and chaos of the gang of us was pretty much the only initiation ever required of theGuy.

That's what happens when you have four siblings. Each has to out-shout the other. That's just how we roll. And it just so happens that all of us are hilarious all the time, so there is always hysterical giggling and guffawing and all that jazz. We're just cool like that.

One of my favourite bloggers, Lauren, over at Filing Jointly...finally wrote one of those "Five Things Friday" on Tuesday, which got me thinking about my childhood and rules and all that stuff.

It made me think - instead of laughing to my siblings about some of these funny things - why not open the gates and air our family's dirty laundry! You're loving this, aren't you, mom?

To start - these were the rules in the Adair house, when at the dinner table:

1. No TV at the table.
2. No books at the table.
3. No singing at the table.
4. No laughing at the table. 


Go back and read that list, people. While numbers 1-3 sound pretty reasonable, although the implementation of these rules basically meant "No fun at our house", you're probably thinking to yourself that its a little harebrained to say "no laughing at the table". And I completely agree.

We were totally sad, dismal, gloomy children.

Not really.

We still laughed at the table, and with 5 kids to look at, there were many opportunities to catch a sibling's eye and make faces while a parent wasn't looking. The trouble with five children laughing at the table at once is that they get louder and louder, and louder, and then there's always the possibility of choking or something, and we... we weren't really an athletic bunch.. Turbo once almost bit his finger off, thinking it was a french fry. Liquids could shoot out of noses.... beans could fly across the room, we could fall off of chairs. Dinner time had the potential to be quite deadly. So, okay. They were looking out for our best interests.

Then there were swear words. There were lots of words we couldn't use in our house.  You know the standards - the eff bomb, etc. We also weren't allowed to say "shut up", or "WHAT?" (it's "pardon, people!"), or "huh", "fart" (we called it a "fouf"), etc. etc. etc. We weren't allowed to be obnoxious adolescents and add "ahhhh" at the end of words - you know, like: "Daaaaadahhhh. Noooooahhhh. Whyyyyyahh? Mooooomah. Finnnnnneeeeah. That kind of thing.

Totally makes sense. Though it's funny when kids swear, no one wants their kid to be the potty mouth in the classroom. Or in the professional world. Unless you're a sailor (or a guitar repair technician - ask theGuy - he'll say "eff yeah!" [but not with the "eff" part.. he'll use the whole word]).

But then there were the random words.. like the incident I am going to share with you, which is just not cool (and I share it in a comment on Lauren's blog this week):

"Bugger."

My little brother was bugging me. A lot. That's what little, stupid, dumb-dumb brothers do.

So, I was yelling at him because he wouldn't stop, and my mom was all "Don't yell at your little brother", and I was all "but MOM! He's such a BUGGER." My mom scolded me and let me know that I was never to use that word again.

I didn't get it! He was a bugger! He was bugging me, and so, a bugger!

My mom sent me to my room and told me I was not to use that word again.

The result of this exchange was me flipping through the dictionary to understand what the true meaning of 'bugger' was.

I lost my childhood innocence that day.

If she's just ignored it, I probably never would've said that word again.

Happy Friday!