More Mother's Day Shenanigans!

Dinner time in our house is never predictable. Some days it is a quiet, solemn affair with everyone tucking into the meal and not even pausing to chat. Other days it's as you'd expect for a family meal - various conversations and verbal games occurring, some giggling and laughter and the regular protests of "But this is yuck!" and "I don't liiiiike it!". And more frequently than I'd like, it is noisy and crazy and the dining room becomes a chaotic jumble of laughter, chatter, shouting, kicking, peas, mash and visits to the Time Out spot!

For Mother's Day we really indulged and had KFC. Pants had seen an ad on television for "Mum's Banquet" and because the TV man said it would be perfect for Mum on Mother's Day, it would, of course, be perfect for Mum on Mother's Day.
And it included chocolate brownies.

So KFC it was. We brought our bucket of chicken home and sat down around our table. (Can I say even the concept of a "bucket of chicken " is wrong. Why would anyone need an entire bucket of chicken? Why not just a slightly larger box? Or tray? Why a bucket?!)

As we enjoyed the Colonel's secret recipe - which appeared to be predominantly a thick orange layer of batter stuck to the skelton of a dead chook - I mentioned that when I was a child, there was a rumour doing the rounds that KFC had used something other than chicken at times. I asked the kids to guess what it might have been, and told them the animal in question started with "R".
They guessed rats, roosters and rhinoceros before giving in and I told them it was rabbit. And likely to be untrue, and that their dinner was safe, and no this wasn't rabbit, and I knew because KFC are not allowed to sell rabbit and call it chicken and yes I was sure and now that they mention it I have no idea WHY I thought it was a good idea to share that little snippet from my childhood!

In a desperate effort to distract them, I suggested a game called "What's the Colonel Deep Frying THIS Time?". We took turns to think of an animal to "kentucky fry", give the starting letter to the others and then wait for someone to guess.

The Honey Girl is in Prep, and is reading beautifully but sometimes forgets or mixes up her letters. Her turns were a little challenging because I had to point out that while I appreciate her efforts to write the letter in the air with her finger - or indeed the entire word - I am not familiar with hieroglyphics and had no freaking idea WHAT she was attempting to write as a starting letter!

Pants was similarly challenging, as he has some speech challenges which sometimes slightly alter what he *thinks* is the starting letter, and what the actual starting letter is! "KFT" was, of course, Kentucky Fried Trocodile! And he was pretty dirty that we didn't get it!

When my turn came around, I thought they'd find Kentucky Fried Tarantula amusing. I'd recently seen a TV program where some children from a jungle village were out hunting for their version of takeaway - giant hairy spiders that were captured, killed and roasted on an open fire. Ever the parent-teacher, I thought my effort might lead to an interesting cultural lesson.

Instead, the game got way out hand. As he waited for his younger siblings to guess what the "T" stood for, Tubby started to giggle to himself. Had I glanced to see his face I'd have known immediately that his pre-teen mind was someplace it should not be and may have had a chance to salvage the game by redirecting his responses to appropriate suggestions that were of the animal kind. Instead, I asked him what was so funny.

"Kentucky Fried Todgers" he burst out with, and the table dissolved into giggles.
On his next turn, he almost turned purple in an attempt to control his laughter until he had blurted out "Kentucky Fried Turds" ... and the table dissolved into raucous laughter.

It took some serious threats, and some plate-clearing, dishwasher-stacking and teeth-brushing activities to regain control and make a final attempt to continue the game until everyone had had a turn.

In the interests of ensuring everyone feels content and involved, we occasionally stack the odds a little in such games. Especially towards the younger two players, who battle speech and literacy issues to participate and require a little extra assistance to respond correctly.

On one particular round everyone knew what the answer was, but it was Pant's turn to guess.
"It starts with G" Tubby reminded him
"It lives in Africa" the Rabbit offered
"It's got a loooong neck" the Honey Girl added, and we all stretched our necks up for Pants to see

He still looked puzzled, so we started to dance around the kitchen in a conga-line, singing "Melman Melman Melman!" (from the movie "Madagscar", in case you're wondering how often my family spontaneously conga-line around the kitchen for no real reason!)

Suddenly Pants' face lit up, his eyes showed clear recognition and he started jumping up and down in his seat in excitement.
"I know! I know!" he shouted "It's gorilla!!!"

*sigh*

When we'd finally got the boy to utter the magic words "giraffe", we congratulated him on his efforts and moved on.
It was the Rabbit's turn next, and he had run out of superhero animals (we'd done kentucky fried bat, kentucky fried spider etc etc) He'd decided on shark this time, and while we all knew what the answer was, it was the Honey Girl's turn to guess.

Being the caring and kind big brother that he is, the Rabbit tried hard to give his little sister a good chance. He started to "swim" around the kitchen, with his teeth bared and snapping and his arms above his head forming a very obvious dorsal fin.
His sister still looked a little unsure so he began to hum the Jaws theme (I have NO idea how he knows the Jaws theme, I might add!) He got louder and louder and more and more shark-like and fierce, until he "swam" up and stopped, with a snap of his teeth, in front of her.

The Honey Girl eyed him closely, raise one eyebrow and asked "Snail?"

At about this point it came to my attention that the Boombah was no longer participating in the game, and was suddenly nappy-free and coming from the direction of my bedroom.
I scrambled up from the table and ran towards my room demanding the toddler tell me if he "wa-hooed in Mummy's room? We don't wa-hoo on Mummy's bed, ok? You can wa-hoo in the toilet, but no wa-hooing in Mummy's bed!"

Again, my children dissolved into fits of giggles and I found myself wondering what on earth these small people have DONE to me, that I'd have not only spent my evening in such a way but that I had enjoyed it as much as they had.

And where on earth the word "wa-hoo" had come from, and why my children thought it related to bodily functions??!



B is for "Blessed".
Or Bampire Bat, apparently.

Or boobie, but we're not allowed to go there!