Can you hurry up and take that picture?
I think this thing's starting to smell my fear.
I think this thing's starting to smell my fear.
For those of you who are unaware, we have somewhat of an open door policy at our house. That's actually a bit of an understatement. (I wrote about some of our more noted house guests in a little more detail in this post, Click Here) Seriously though, we've had more extended stay guests than the Residence Inn, and yet we've got to be the absolute worst bed and breakfast to stay at since the Bates Motel. Because when you stay with us, there's a good chance that you might have one or two kids crawl into bed with you in the middle of the night; I wake up at 4:30 am and 'not so quietly' make a protein shake; and as far as breakfast is concerned, you'll be lucky to find a hidden Ego waffle in the back of the freezer. And don't expect a clean plate to put it on, either. Our house has gotten so crazy that Cato Kaelin heard we have a room available. But sorry, Cato, your room's been taken. It's been scooped up by my cousin Keith. Now for those of you who know Keith, you're probably thinking, "What? Keith? Moving into a house with 5 kids? A house that considers it late when the street lights come on? A house that's had the same 3 beers in the fridge for the past 4 months? A house where video games are considered a nuisance? A house where late night Doritos binges are discouraged?" But for those of you who don't know Keith, let me give you a quick wiki type description. He is the 25 year old son of my mom's twin sister, which technically makes him my cousin, although he's always been like more of a brother since our moms are twins and he lived next door to us growing up. But as close as we are, it's almost impossible to accurately describe him. Because he's really smart, but just did enough to get by in school. He's not terribly outgoing, but he has more friends than a Mexican with a pickup truck. He's pretty quiet, but yet one of the funniest people I know. He's somewhat lucky, but then never can seem to catch a break. He's great with kids, but he fears changing a diaper like Mel Gibson fears the Jews (Couldn't decide which way to go here with the fear jokes. Thought about maybe - like an Englishman fears the dentist? Like the girls of More To Love fear a salad? Like rational people fear Obama? Ehh, I'll stick with Mel. He's Australian. He can take it.) Keith is truly a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma......
When we were growing up, he was kind of wrongfully labeled as somewhat of the black sheep of the family. He was constantly getting busted in some sort of kakamamie scheme (Yes, that's how you spell kakamamie. I had our research department look it up.) I'm four years older than Keith, and the stuff that he was getting busted doing was usually the same stuff that I had been getting away with four years prior. But since my older brother never did anything that he wasn't supposed to do, and I rarely got caught (Just kidding mom, I was perfect, just like you thought), our parents kind of thought that Keith got into more trouble growing up than Lindsay Lohan. It seemed like once a week, he would get grounded, and my parents would send me over to 'talk some sense into him'. But in actuality, we'd have this conversation:
Me: Keith, I'm very disappointed. I can't believe you.
Keith: What?
Me: How are you constantly getting caught?
Keith: No. You don't understand. I had the perfect plan this time.
Me: You said that the last time.
Keith: No, but I mean it this time. This plan was perfect.
Me: (Feeling like Indigo Montoya in The Princess Bride) I don't think that word means what you think it means.
But to be honest, most of his plans were really good, and a lot more detailed and way more thought out than any of mine ever were. He just couldn't catch a break. One time, when he was trying to sneak out of the house, he made sure to turn off the beeping buttons on the alarm before his parents went to sleep. Then disarmed the alarm after they were sleeping, snuck out, then some freak lightning storm hit, lightning struck the house, his dad woke up, saw there was a power surge, turned the alarm back on (along with the beeping button feature), and of course, Keith set the alarm off when he came back inside. But even with all of the bad luck, there was a hint of good luck mixed in. When his parents came into the hallway and saw Keith standing there, confused because the alarm was back on, fumbling with the loudness of the buttons, and frantically trying to turn the alarm off; they thought they caught him trying to sneak out. Not sneak back in. They just assumed he was too retarded to turn the alarm off before he left. So since he didn't actually sneak out according to them, he got off easy. Every time he got caught it was the same explanation. "but I had the perfect plan."
For the past few years, Keith's been living in Louisiana, working at various places to pay the bills, bouncing around from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to Slidell, hanging out with friends, and just kind of getting by. We've been talking about him moving up here for a while now, as sort of a way to get a fresh start away from all of the Louisiana shenanigans. And until recently, it's always just been talk of something that would happen at some arbitrary date in the future; kind of like the same way Rach talks about buying a new dishwasher. (She's not too concerned with us not having a dishwasher for the past month. You know why? Guess who does the dishes.) Anyway, Keith recently lost his job and his place to live within a couple of weeks of each other, so now makes perfect sense for him to get out of the Louisiana quicksand, and come to sunny South Cacalaca. Hell take the top bunk in the boys room and they'll double up in the bottom. Just kidding. He's got his own bedroom and bathroom downstairs, we'll help him find a job, help him figure out what he really wants to do, and he helps us by closing the gap between number of adults and number of kids. On the surface, it appears that we're doing Keith a great big favor. And sure, you could look at it like that. But I say it's us getting more out of the deal. You see, it's hard raising five kids without any family nearby. Even if we didn't have the kids, it's still difficult moving to a new city by yourselves and establishing a home. So far, we've been able to get Maxine up here (Who has been awesome, by the way), but that's the only family we have here in South Carolina. And as of this past weekend, we've officially been here for over 4 years. And we really do like it here. We have houses here, we have careers here, we have friends here, our kids are rooted here; but apart from Maxine, we're on a family island. And I think the kids can kind of sense that too. They're far more excited than any of us to have Uncle Keith moving in. It's another grown up here to love them, help them, and give them more attention. And not to mention the added benefits that Rach and I get of having another grown up here to help out with day to day activities.
Keith, not only teaching Jaxon how to be really bad at Warshers,
but also teaching him how to be formal, and yet still like to party.
And from Keith's perspective, this is going to be like moving from Earth to Mars. And I don't mean the uninhabited, desolate, Red Planet, dusty Mars, either. I'm talking about the freakshow type Mars, like the Mars from Total Recall (minus the 3-Boobed lady, of course). This is not exactly the ideal living situation, and definitely not what he's used to. But Keith and I agree that this might be exactly what he needs. Because this is anything but 'the perfect plan'.
When we were growing up, he was kind of wrongfully labeled as somewhat of the black sheep of the family. He was constantly getting busted in some sort of kakamamie scheme (Yes, that's how you spell kakamamie. I had our research department look it up.) I'm four years older than Keith, and the stuff that he was getting busted doing was usually the same stuff that I had been getting away with four years prior. But since my older brother never did anything that he wasn't supposed to do, and I rarely got caught (Just kidding mom, I was perfect, just like you thought), our parents kind of thought that Keith got into more trouble growing up than Lindsay Lohan. It seemed like once a week, he would get grounded, and my parents would send me over to 'talk some sense into him'. But in actuality, we'd have this conversation:
Me: Keith, I'm very disappointed. I can't believe you.
Keith: What?
Me: How are you constantly getting caught?
Keith: No. You don't understand. I had the perfect plan this time.
Me: You said that the last time.
Keith: No, but I mean it this time. This plan was perfect.
Me: (Feeling like Indigo Montoya in The Princess Bride) I don't think that word means what you think it means.
But to be honest, most of his plans were really good, and a lot more detailed and way more thought out than any of mine ever were. He just couldn't catch a break. One time, when he was trying to sneak out of the house, he made sure to turn off the beeping buttons on the alarm before his parents went to sleep. Then disarmed the alarm after they were sleeping, snuck out, then some freak lightning storm hit, lightning struck the house, his dad woke up, saw there was a power surge, turned the alarm back on (along with the beeping button feature), and of course, Keith set the alarm off when he came back inside. But even with all of the bad luck, there was a hint of good luck mixed in. When his parents came into the hallway and saw Keith standing there, confused because the alarm was back on, fumbling with the loudness of the buttons, and frantically trying to turn the alarm off; they thought they caught him trying to sneak out. Not sneak back in. They just assumed he was too retarded to turn the alarm off before he left. So since he didn't actually sneak out according to them, he got off easy. Every time he got caught it was the same explanation. "but I had the perfect plan."
For the past few years, Keith's been living in Louisiana, working at various places to pay the bills, bouncing around from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to Slidell, hanging out with friends, and just kind of getting by. We've been talking about him moving up here for a while now, as sort of a way to get a fresh start away from all of the Louisiana shenanigans. And until recently, it's always just been talk of something that would happen at some arbitrary date in the future; kind of like the same way Rach talks about buying a new dishwasher. (She's not too concerned with us not having a dishwasher for the past month. You know why? Guess who does the dishes.) Anyway, Keith recently lost his job and his place to live within a couple of weeks of each other, so now makes perfect sense for him to get out of the Louisiana quicksand, and come to sunny South Cacalaca. Hell take the top bunk in the boys room and they'll double up in the bottom. Just kidding. He's got his own bedroom and bathroom downstairs, we'll help him find a job, help him figure out what he really wants to do, and he helps us by closing the gap between number of adults and number of kids. On the surface, it appears that we're doing Keith a great big favor. And sure, you could look at it like that. But I say it's us getting more out of the deal. You see, it's hard raising five kids without any family nearby. Even if we didn't have the kids, it's still difficult moving to a new city by yourselves and establishing a home. So far, we've been able to get Maxine up here (Who has been awesome, by the way), but that's the only family we have here in South Carolina. And as of this past weekend, we've officially been here for over 4 years. And we really do like it here. We have houses here, we have careers here, we have friends here, our kids are rooted here; but apart from Maxine, we're on a family island. And I think the kids can kind of sense that too. They're far more excited than any of us to have Uncle Keith moving in. It's another grown up here to love them, help them, and give them more attention. And not to mention the added benefits that Rach and I get of having another grown up here to help out with day to day activities.
Keith, not only teaching Jaxon how to be really bad at Warshers,but also teaching him how to be formal, and yet still like to party.
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