Seven year old willies

My dad is doing pretty well since his stroke back in March.  It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a year. 

There have been a ton of changes in our lives since then.  Perspectives have made major shifts in a short time.  Living arrangements have been altered on an epic scale. 

Dad lives with my brother and his wife and kids and seventy-five thousand dogs.  I collect him as often as I can – but my life is insane and I hold a lot of guilt that I don’t give my brother and sister-in-law as many breaks as I should.  I try to always make a point of “taking” him anytime they ask.

My kids enjoy having Poppa here.  He’s always been a silly old man and he teases them a lot.  I collected him last Saturday to spend the night while my brother and his wife went to a wedding.  We went out to dinner and to the Price Club and watched the boxing matches on TV and hunted around for football games.  It was nice.  The thing about having Poppa over is that he goes to bed at 8 o’clock so I still have a ton of time for writing.  And of course, promptly at 8 o’clock he started drifting down the hall to Sassy’s room. 

He sleeps in there and Sassy sleeps on the Bandit’s top bunk.

Sassy needed something from her room so she knocked on the door and went in and spied Poppa climbing into bed and getting under the covers.  And then she high-tailed it out of there.

No – it was nothing horrendous like Poppa sleeping naked, but he was in his underpants.  He’s always slept in his underpants.  So do most men, in my experience.  Her father does.  (How thrilled is My Honey going to be when he reads this and finds out I’ve told the entire Internet he sleeps in his jockey shorts!  That man is really very patient with me.)

“Moooooooo-ooooooooom!” Sassy hollered down the hallway.  “MOM!”

“What?” I asked.  I was putting Spongebob toothpaste on a Spiderman toothbrush.  Oh, what would childhood be like without the cartoon industry’s marketing engines?

“OH.  MY.  GOD!” she said in her dramatic fashion, hand on her hip, head cocked to the side.  “OH. MY. GOD.”

I rolled my eyes.  Honestly, I don’t know where she gets it. (hahahahahaahaha – I can’t even hold up that charade for the sake of the story.  I swear, talking to her is exactly like talking to a seven year old me.)

“”Spit it out, kid, so you can brush your teeth,” I tell her.  I hand Bandit back his toothbrush and shake my head indicating he needs to do a better job.  “Air brushing” is not acceptable.

“Did. You. Know.” Here she pauses to take an elaborate breath and exhale it in a loud huff. “Poppa is sleeping in my bed…”

I hold my hand to my chest and gasp.  “NO!  What does he think he’s doing?  Sleeping?  In your bed?  I’m calling your uncle right away and discussing this appalling development.  Sleeping in beds.  Good Lord!  What next?”

“MOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOM! I’m serious!  He’s in there right now sleeping in my bed in HIS UNDERWEAR!”

I start laughing.  Hard. I can’t even hold up my end of the dramatic scene. The kid is totally serious.

“So?”

“His underwear is touching my sheets!”  She says this like he’s in there sacrificing goats on her bed or something.

By now I can’t even breath, I’m laughing so hard.  “So? Your daddy sleeps in his underwear.  You know this and that doesn’t bother you.”

Sassy delivers a wiggly shiver.  “What if he farts in there?”

And now I’m tearing up and wheezing.  The best part is, I’m quite certain he will.