The Game Of Life (Godsey Edition!)

Usually my mother, Katie Godsey, would write blogs. Well, now I, Gabe, am interested in blogging. She hasn't blogged for almost 3 years now, so I decided to take over for her. 

You've heard of my wonderous, little kid shanagans, as well as my brother's, Zach. But I must say, the funny things me and Zach used to do as little kids don't happen anymore. Zach is 11 and I'm 12. Luckily, Rilla is still 5, so we still get some toddler comedy!

We plan to move to Gambia by February to be missionaries, and I admit, I am REALLY going to miss The States! All of our hilarious happenings happened in America! But now, Rilla will carry her little-kid soul to West Africa with her hopefully!!!

See ya'll later,      Gabe Godsey, 

            Katie Godsey's Firstborn! 

Theology 101

Recently the history channel aired a wonderful series called "The Bible" which our boys thoroughly enjoyed watching, and we thoroughly enjoyed all the discussions it sparked. As our resident fact checker, Zach especially enjoyed talking about the historical accuracy of the show, so I thought it was wonderful that he began to explain what was going on in one of the last episodes:
" You see, Mom, Jesus was praying in the Olive Garden."

The "Acorn " Story

About three years ago, my endometriosis was really kicking in and I was tired in the mornings, especially mornings after work.  One morning as I was lying in bed, Zach sauntered in wearing his Superman pajama pants and a very cocky smile.  He stopped in front of my side of the bed, hands on his hips.
"Good morning," I said sleepily.
He continued to stare at me without speaking, frozen in his Superman pose.
"Hi, honey, " I added.
Then I saw something on his pants, right in the front, but without my contacts in I couldn't quite tell what I was looking at.  Peering closer, my sleep-fuddled mind was trying to work -- "What's on his pants? Is that an acorn??"
Needless to say, it was NOT an acorn. My darling son had taken scissors and cut a hole into the front of his pajama pants, allowing (ahem.) something to hang out, and was strutting around the house thus exposed.
"Zach!" I yelped, hopping out of bed. "What did you do?! Take those pants off! And don't use the scissors like that!!"
"What?" he innocently smiled, his dimples working their magic.
Later in the day when I told my husband what HIS son had done, he was immediately concerned about everything having remained intact, and once I reassured him, he smiled proudly. Of course.
The Superman pajamas are folded up in my closet, and will be reappearing only once, when I had them over to my future daughter-in-law the night before their wedding.

Age of Discovery

On Wednesday Katy went with her "Women in History" class to the local birthing center. As I did the dishes that night she was telling me all about it, including a picture on her phone of her "crazy" teacher sitting in the giant tub, asking way too many questions for the students comfort. Katy told me how the midwife showed them around, how the midwife was explaining different aspects of childbirth to them as the tour continued.
"But," she added, "isn't the midwife the lady who gets pregnant for someone else? I kept wondering, 'yeah, but where's the baby?' "
This comment stopped me  in my dish-washing tracks, and I stared at my beautiful 17 year old daughter, wondering exactly how much of the Birds & Bees I should revisit with her.

It's Me, the amazing Katie

Last night after I finished the dishes, I decided to send our pastor, Dave, a funny text. He is always so busy and gets so many "emergency" phone calls and texts that occasionally it's nice to just send one that will put a smile on his face. Inadvertently I put a smile on lots of faces after sharing my embarrassing goof involving a texting typo.
Originally I was planning to send this:
"suggestion for the church sign: My husband is the head of our home 95% of the time with God's help. The other 5% of the time he is the other end, all by himself!" I added, "Just kidding!" and then meant to ask if I would be relieved of my duties in leadership for sending the text, but accidentally wrote: "So, am I going to be licked off the youth alpha team?"
Smugly I went into the living room to show John what I sent to Dave, and he said, "Wow, that's funny. What's really funny, though, is that you asked him if he was going to lick you off the team."
In horror, I doubled checked the text - John was right.
Oh, no.
Helplessly I dissolved in laughter, which quickly led to a bout of "laugh/crying," my hysterical way of dealing with something SO funny when I am exhausted. The waves of embarrassment just kept on rolling, and when Dave responded, "uh, ha. How are you doing?" I confessed that I wanted to die from humiliation, and asked him to never talk to me again.
Figured I should just go ahead and lick myself off the team to avoid any further terrifying typos.

Exposed

Today while I was innocently sitting on my parents porch, my mom pulled into the drive way, and walked over to me, shaking her finger and saying, "We have a problem."  Uh, yeah. To put it mildly. She handed me a piece of paper.
"When the boys were at Sharon's they were so good. They stopped to visit Grandpa [at the nursing home] and while they were there Gabe drew a picture, which was immediately hung up on the wall next to Great Grandpa's bed. Today, " my dear sweet mother continued, "I took that picture down."
This is what my eight year old son drew. What was hanging next to my grandfather's bed for two weeks.

(Photo has been censored.)

It was a conversation I wasn't planning on having with my son for at least a couple more years.

Holiday Hilarity Part IV: It's in the Bag

For John's birthday this year I had a silly whim and decided to wrap all of his gifts in Victoria's Secret bags.  Although I'm sure the idea came upon me due to a lack of wrapping paper, it did strike me as a really funny idea, so when he came home on his birthday to a giant pile of pink bags, varying in size (hmmm, I like to think ALL of my Victoria's Secret bags are small!), I, for one, was giggling.
When Katy announced on Christmas Eve that she had decided to wrap all of her gifts to her friends in Victoria's Secret bags, the idea began to seem less appropriate. However, parenting -especially teenagers- is a constant tension of choosing which "battles" to fight, so I let it slide. An additional preface to the upcoming horror story is that sometime during the advent season, my oldest daughter and I had discussed the old tradition of including an orange in people's stockings. Katy was horrified, having never eaten an orange, and also having embraced wholeheartedly our family tradition of chocolate gold-wrapped coins that are in the very bottom of her stocking each year.
John and I narrowly escaped having to leave church during the Christmas Eve service this year due to our uncontrollable giggling; when the last song ended we heaved a collective sigh and stood up, ready to wrestle our kids into the car, into their pjs, and into their beds so we (I) could finish wrapping gifts (yes, I did spring for buying wrapping paper this time around).  We were just turning to collect our coats when a young man, a friend of Katy's that we are fairly well acquainted with, came over to us, a Victoria's Secret Bag in his hand,a frown on his face.  He quickly approached John, my formidable looking husband.
"Um, your daughter gave me this, " he said,"and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have it."
He held out the bag to John, who peered into it as his eyebrows shot up to somewhere above his hairline.  Katy's friend continued to hold the bag out to John, whose expression was vacillating between confusion and horror. 
I rushed over, taking in the situation, knowing Katy thought it would be funny to use the lingerie bags as a joke, but not realizing she was going to pass them out IN CHURCH.  Peeking in the pink bag, my legs just about gave out - lying at the bottom was a banana and a small container of clear gel.
"That better be hand sanitizer!" my husband thundered.
It was. Katy had decided since we didn't have any oranges she would pass out bananas, and then apparently decided to throw in anything else she found lying around the house, since due to a lack of funds she hadn't actually bought gifts for anyone.
Her poor friend was trying to give the bag to John, probably worried he was about to get his arms ripped off, and I rushed away to try to stop my innocent daughter from handing out any more of her holiday "packages".  I found her outside, and did my best to navigate the conversation without sounding like some kind of pervert.  She gave me a blank look, and said, "Well, we didn't have any oranges, what was I supposed to do?"
Next year we will be assembling gifts together, maybe those jars full of cookie ingredients.