Family, you gotta love 'em.....

....because anything else you might do to them could wind you in jail.

The reunion went off fairly well.  Well, let me take that back.  My mom was REALLY surprised.



I don't think it sunk in completely at first that all seven of her kids were present, but once it did, she was about half giddy.



Can you believe she is 78 years old?

For the most part everyone got along, though anyone from a large family will admit that when everyone gets together, there can easily be hurt feelings over something.  I was worried about my two oldest brothers, who did beautifully by the way.  Actually, I'm k ind of thankful it was me who got stomped on a few times, as I think I take it better than most.

The Good

The plan came off relatively without a hitch, unless you were my sister, Vicki, who was responsible for keeping mom out of her house all day long.  Mom was rather difficult, insisting she needed to go home to stir the stew she had in the crock pot, but Vicki wouldn't let her.  Mom even told her, "You sure are bossy today!" and even threatened to leave Vicki at the mall while she went home to stir the blasted stew.  That was when Vicki had to say, "You CAN'T go home."  So, though mom knew something was up, she had no idea of the magnitude of the whole thing.



Vicki with my brother, Tom.

While Vicki was struggling with the difficult matron of the family, the rest of us converged upon my mother's house.  It was wonderful to see everyone (the only one not present for set up was my youngest brother) and to play catch up, which we had plenty of time for, considering we thought for some reason it would take hours to set everything up.  By 2:00 we were finished and mom would not arrive until 7:20.  So, we had lots of yaking time, which was very nice.



From  left to right, brother, Doug, sister, Connie and sister, MaryAnn.

Mom got there, was surprised and we all dug into dinner of crabs (a must anytime  a sibling from California or Tennesse comes to Maryland), hot dogs, beans, spaghetti salad and salad.  The night wrapped up about 11:00 for me and my tribe, though a few remained until nearly 3:00am!

The bad

Saturday was the day we were all to go to the Picture People to have a family portrait taken.  A few people decided not to show up at mom's place until then, which I found rather irritating as our picture appointment wasn't until 5:00.  But, ya gotta let it go and not dwell on things.  So, we did the pics, went back to mom's where Shannon (Tom's wife ) made an incredible southern dinner of chicken, biscuits and gravy.  Very good!  From there, karoke was broken out and fun was had by most (I'll comment more on some of these points at a later date).



MaryAnn and her hysterical, good guy hubby, Ron with a rendition of "Forever and Ever, Amen."



Ron and my youngest brother, Johnny with "What a Wonderful World"

It was a fun evening.

The Ugly

So, my feelings got run over a couple of time in the course of the weekend.  First off, ya'll know, I have always battled weight issues and I am fully aware of this.  So, much to my chagrin, the photographer who took our portrait decided that out of 15 people, I should be in the front on a stool.  Great....I would have prefered the back!  Anyway, I kind of groaned at the proofs when they came out and my mother said to me, "Well, now that you know what you look like you can do something about it."  Thanks, mom.  Because, yeah, I never knew I had weight issues until this past Saturday when that picture was taken.  He was one brilliant photographer to be able to capture me in a way that my own mirror (which insists I am a size 2) has not been able to capture.  But, I brush it off....she's after all, 78, and the older she gets the less unspoken thoughts she has.

Ugly number two involved Jarrit and was a double whammy.  Whoo hoo!  JJ is high spirited and ya'll that have 6 year olds, back me up here.  He was pretty wound up the whole weekend for what I see to be three basic reasons:
 1) 15 people around.  Insanity reigning supreme, and unlike adults, who can vanish outside or into a bedroom for a few minutes of quiet and calm time, kids don't have the ability to figure out that is what they should do.  Instead, they get caught up in the insanity.
2) Sleep schedule disruption.  He was up later at night over the weekend as we were at mom's place and was up early both Saturday and Sunday.
3) He was inside all weekend.  He was not at home where he and Aaron both tend to run around with the neighborhood kids; playing ball, jumping on the trampoline, bike riding, etc

So, yes, he was wound up.  I forget if it was Saturday or Sunday, but I was informed by one of my sisters (I forget which one) that "We took a vote and decided that Jarrit is ADHD."  Huh?  Now I can understand the frustrations of folks who have stated to me before that doctors are too quick to label a kid ADHD.  I totally get it now.  What I wanted to say was "Hey, really?  Well, I'll tell ya what!  Let me bring Aaron over here tomorrow morning without his Adderall and then you can tell me what you think."  Please....JJ is at the head of his class with no behavior issues at school.  The kid is not ADHD.  Incidently, with all the company now gone, being home and having been outside playing after school, he is a much calmer child tonight.

The second part of the double whammy and again, back me up, parents, was at the mall for pics on Saturday.  Because JJ was so wound up, the Brit sat with him in the picture place for an hour while they developed the proofs, not allowing him to go out in the mall with any of us.  For the record here, most of my friends, whom I have had this discussion with have stated that their children have a healthy amount of respect (aka fear) of their fathers.  My kids are no exception.  Though I discipline them, it is the Brit who really instills fear in them.  All I have to do is pick up the phone to call the Brit at work, and whatever they were being disobediant about is quickly remedied.  But, I was told on Saturday that I "should go to work full time and let the Brit stay home with the kids."  So, now I'm a bad parent....or I would be if I cared what anyone else thought. 

So, though my older brother, Doug, had been concerned about him not being the one to have his feelings tromped on, never fear!  It was me!  Which again, is fine.  I can take it and am finally to the point in my life, where I care little about what others think of me.  I am who I am and if you don't like it, go play in another sandbox (and sometimes they do, which again, is fine). 

So, despite the jabs at me, and annoyance a couple of times at attitudes, it was a great weekend.  I love my family, I really do, even though I feel a little bit safer psychologically, with everyone back at home.  I would gladly do it again and look forward to seeing them next time, whenever next time is....I just need to remember to stay out of the line of fire if no one else is currently in it.