The Family Blocks

It's been an interesting two weeks since Mother's Day. Yup, I was so very spoiled. My family made me breakfast, took away all my responsibilities, and showered me with awesome gifts.

My daughter gave me decorative blocks that spell Family. I love them! I put them on the entertainment center in our family room. But I wasn't prepared for what happened then.

Monday, I heard the kids snickering in the family room. So, I went to investigate. They grew very quiet when I came in, other than a few badly stifled giggles.

And then I looked at the entertainment center. My Family had turned into something else. Now we all like scrabble. Suddenly, my decorations had become a challenging game and the whole family was on board. So what can you spell with "F" "a" "m" "i" "l" and "y"?

How about this?

What else? I found out when I came in on Tuesday. This was done by my son who loves to laugh. When he was a child and had just drawn another masterpiece on my walls with permanent marker AGAIN, he would laugh - until he caught sight of my face. Then he'd get the best puppy dog eyes ever and beg forgiveness. Ah, memories. My walls have been clean for many years now. But he's still laughing.

Wednesday, I found this. My young son came to stand behind me with a wide grin. "You did this?" I asked.

"How'd you guess?" he asked with his cute way of hunching his shoulders up to his ears. "It's like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals."

Thursday, the letters changed again. I have another son who loves to make short films. This one wasn't hard to guess who the author was.

Friday's I thought was clever. Ah, bring on the mayflies and junebugs. I'm ready for summer!

But Saturday's had me stumped. I kept walking by it, thinking there had to be a secret message in there somewhere. At last, my youngest son came up and said, "Do you get it, Mom?"

I grimaced and tried again. "Um . . . "

"The 'F' stands for family," he hinted.

"My eel family?" I guessed.

"No, no, no," he said. "Look at the middle blocks again."

I did. Unfortunately, nothing brilliant came. Finally, he pointed to the 'i' and 'a'. "Those are eyes." He pointed to the sideways 'l'. "And that's a mouth."

I laughed. It's a huge relief when you've just come out of the dark. I'd only seen letters.

He saw this:

By Sunday, everyone was getting creative. It's good they're all for life.

But on Monday, who was bemoaning being a wife? I'm the only wife in our family, and although I have my moments, I'm very happy being so.

Mid-week, my husband called me in and, with a flourish, pointed out his masterpiece.

"Flim," I said, pasting a grin on my face. "Wow."

"Wait," he said, shuffling the blocks. "Now look."

I was glad my grin could be genuine. "Ah, flim-flam. Not bad."

But the next few days brought a lot of far reaches. The 'm' got flipped and became a 'w'. The 'y' became an 'h'. There were a lot of crazy words and, 'Ah, come on!'s. I won't torture you with them all.

By last weekend, I think we'd conceded defeat:

On Sunday, my daughter decided to be rebellious and I came out to find this:

And that says it all. Family. My funny, crazy, creative family! I wouldn't trade them for all the blocks in the world!

5/25/11 - I apologize, but blogger isn't letting me comment or make comments on other's blogs. I'll try again tomorrow.