We decided relatively last-minute to visit my family this week and installed ourselves in their guest room last night at 1:30 in the morning, after a long roadtrip. This morning my husband took the kids out to look at real estate. He returned earlier than we thought and the kids tromped into the living room.
“Oh, did Daddy buy a house?” my mom asks my daughter.
“No, he was teasing me,” she says cheerfully. “He said I’d live in the van by myself. And I’d only eat dog biscuits and spiders.”
“And then I cried a little bit.” She concludes, evenly. (One might assume this is when the teasing stopped).
Ralph entrez, shamefaced we heard her testimony. Earlier this morning he deliberately terrified our son with a giant, creepy, papier-mâché black widow spider.
(Edited to add – two seconds ago, I hear my daughter ask Ralph: “Dad, are these pickles a little bit poisoned?” Should I be worried?)