“Children of mine!” I said.
This is our call to arms, our Revelee, our ‘Circle the Wagons’. They know it and, usually, respond.
Today they lagged. I was trying to get out the door to a meeting and I rolled my eyes to Max. I could hear the crazies, but, evidently, they couldn’t hear me. “What are those girls doing?” I wondered aloud.
“I know what we should do!” Ellie lit up. “I think we should do what Miss Gleeson does and you should clap softly twice and then WE can clap back in answer three times.”
I stared confused for a moment. “Who is Miss Gleeson?”
“She’s Jigsaw Jones’ teacher,” she and Max said together. We take our reading seriously and literally, obviously.
“Riiiight. You know what I like to do? I like to say, ‘If you can hear my voice, clap once. Iiiif you can hear my voice, clap twice -”
Laughing, Max interupted, “If you can hear my voice, clap thrice!”
Laughter all around!
“What about, ‘If you can hear my voice, clap uno!’?” I suggested, getting into the spirit of things.
Laughs!
“How do you count in Latin?” I asked Max. This caught him off guard and he answered mid-laugh with a
“Duh . . . ” And THAT made us laugh even harder.
“I know . . . ” Ellie was quiet, earnest, and thinking hard.
“I . . . II . . . III. . . IV. . . ”
Max and I rolled with mirth. Luckily Ellie joined in and we all had a good laugh. I left without giving my instructions but not without feeling like there was a little victory in that mix up. And I love me a win.
