The Count...

There are no children at my house, not that I need any, my hubby, Andy is just a big kid himself. Believe me when I tell you, the only difference is his toys cost more.

In all our years together, we never tried to have kids and at this point, that ship has sailed, and I don't mind. We both love kids, and are pretty good with them. I have always worked with the youth in one way or another at church and all of our friends have kids.

The kids think we are great fun. I have had tea parties, colored, made friendship bracelets, built forts with sheets, played games, you name it. Andy loves to play video games, and play pull my finger and burp letters of the alphabet, great boy stuff. But, sometimes I think our friends, the parents, worry when we come to visit.

As I said in my last post, Andy is the Duke of Inappropriate Conversation. There truly is no buffer between his brain and his mouth at times. When you don't have children around all the time, and you are married to me, you get used to being able to say exactly what you are thinking without any repercussions. That has always been one of my favorite parts of our marriage. We can truly be ourselves around each other. However, once you step into someone else's world you at least want to appear civilized.

I can not count the times that he has said something and a parent has had to say, "Andy, the kids." Don't get me wrong, I can be uncivilized too, I just try to hide it better.

On our last trip to visit friends in Virginia to visit friends, I reminded Andy, that not two weeks prior he had offended another of our friends by saying or doing something goofy that was not intended for children's ears. I did not want a repeat of that event. I told him that whenever he had a quick comeback to what someone said he needed to stall his quick response. I suggested that whenever the urge to utter something he thought was witty, that he count to ten slowly and think about who was in the room.

Five minutes after our arrival in Virginia, someone said something and I immediately saw the look on Andy's face and he began to count out-loud, 1, 2, 3, 4... you get the picture. I couldn't help but laugh and our friends asked, "what he was doing?"

I told them about my idea to make Andy aware of his surroundings. They began to laugh too.

Well, as the weekend progressed, Andy had to count many, many times, and soon the kids were in on it. As soon as someone would say something, the kids would look at Andy and begin to count. It was priceless. As soon as Andy began to count all the adults could guess the direction his thoughts were going and would begin to laugh.

My friend Amy said she was going to make it a family rule and apply it to both her brothers and her brothers-in-law. It seems that Andy is not the only "Duke of Inappropriate Conversation" out there. 

I think everyone had a great time with the count. If you have a "Duke of Inappropriate Conversation" in your life, don't get discouraged. Try suggesting they count. I recommend to ten, but if they are really bad, you may want to consider more. Just be sure you do it with a smile.


 Thanks for reading.