Having Been Born Of Goodly Parents...?

Last Sunday one of my co-conspirators paid me a lovely compliment. She said I was, “such a good mother”. It was very sweet and I knew she meant it, but I also knew she wasn’t there for the debacle of ’04 (or ’05, ’06, or ’07). I knew she wasn’t there the day my toilet was flooding all over my BRAND NEW hardwood floors and I said a bad word, and then I said it over and over again as I sloshed through the river heading from my bathroom to my basement to shut off the water, and then my 2 year-old repeated The Bad Word from the top of the stairs as she stared down at my frazzled form. She wasn’t there when I told a whining 4-year-old to “Shut. Up.” and then the next day lectured to him about how “We don’t say ‘shut up’.” And she wasn’t there when we invented The Soda Game.

A couple of years ago we had a coveted bottle of soda in our refrigerator. Not your average can of sugary beverage, this was the kind you paid more for, that only came in boxes of 4 and not 12. Everyone loved it, and so everyone wanted that last bottle. Cory decided we would share it…through games of chance. He got out a small glass and some dice, poured a conservative portion of the drink into the cup and explained, “Whoever rolls the highest number gets what’s in the cup.” The winner of that round would decide the rules for the next round until we finished the bottle. Thus, The Soda Game was born. Now, we each have our own shot glasses and our repertoire has evolved from dice to other games as well. It wasn’t until shortly after that first night that it occurred to me, “Holy crap. We just taught our kids how to live in a frat house.” We’re hoping they go to a church school and stick with soda.

We played this game the other night with a 6 pack of Jones pure cane (I highly recommend the Crème Soda and the Berry Lemonade) but we had one lone, remaining bottle of Green Apple on the door. Drew had some friends over and they all wanted some, so Drew piped up, “Hey! Let’s play the soda game!” To which his friends inquired, “What’s the soda game?” Drew went over to the cupboard and reached for the high shelf, “Well to start off, you’re each going to need your own shot glass.”

Have mercy. The only Mormon kid on the block is teaching drinking games he learned FROM HIS PARENTS. Stay tuned next week when I reveal our family picture on the cover of The Ensign.