We were 'feeding the missionaries' last night, and because I often lay awake at night dreading the things my children tend to say and do when other adults visit our home, I figured a little pop quiz was in order. Sort of a true/false quiz except the possible answers were appropriate/inappropriate. (My children will need years of therapy one day for my overuse of the word 'appropriate'.)
I began by suggesting scenarios like "eating with our fingers?" and "interrupting?" and they were quickly and easily distinguishing the appropriate behaviors from inappropriate. Things got interesting when they began suggesting scenarios of their own devising. It went something like this...
Wonderboy: I know! We should not talk about gross things like diapers and using the potty.
Me: Right.
Princess S: And we should keep our clothes on. Especially our pants.
Me: Precisely. Our usual policy of clothing: optional at dinner will not apply tonight.
Wonderboy: No loud burping. This will be REALLY hard for me because I burp a lot.
Me: Yes, suppress the burps, please.
Princess S: And we definitely should not toot.
Me: Uhuh.
Wonderboy: And it's most important that we try very, very hard not to pinch anyone, especially not our visitors.
There was more, but it truly made no difference. Most of the "inappropriate" behaviors made an appearance last night to our horror and chagrin. Best of all, Wonderboy made a point of telling our visitors "I really like to climb up to my tree house in the back yard, except the tree house doesn't have a floor...or a roof........or walls....and well, it's really just a tree, but if there was a tree house, that would be really cool."
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