A homeschooling family we don’t know very well came by to borrow a curriculum we aren’t using. Before they arrived, I told the kids to pick up their toys a bit since we were making a “first impression”.

“When you meet someone for the first time, you don’t want to be wearing dirty clothes and have food in your teeth. Well, the same goes for your house.” (I believe this is a Confucius quote).

“Yeah, yeah”, they grumbled as little cars were thrown into a basket.

The family arrived, and we all crowded into the living room as the two youngest (our sons) decided they wanted to play trains. Belly tried to help set up the track with them as we watched. As she was about to finish the track, she noticed that she was faced with two pieces that would not join together.

“Mommy, we have two female ends, but we need a male or they won’t go together.”

Oh crap. At that moment I realized that most families probably do not use genitalia to describe their train tracks (hey, think of how easy explaining reproduction will be! “The mommy track waits for the daddy track. . .”). I cringed but said nothing.

Shortly after, the girls all ran giggling upstairs to play with dolls. I resisted the wicked urge to say, “boy, I hope they stay away from the guns, needles and porn” because I liked this mom and was not looking to scare her off. For the rest of the visit, we were all on our best behavior (except for D who refused to share his helicopter for no amount of bribing, begging or threatening).

After we were done discussing the curriculum, I took the mom upstairs to tell her girls it was time to go home. We entered the room, and I saw the girls happily playing with Barbies and horses and Little People.

And then my eyes traveled up the back wall of the room that used to be our office, but is now the kids’ playroom. Here is what I saw:

Oh, hell.

Follow