I laughed.

So while George is studying for USMLE Step 1, Lance and Jude and I have been traveling up and down between Ashburn and Charlottesville for the past month. We sleep at George's parents' house (since there is room for us all) and usually hang out with George's mom during the day while she watches our niece and nephew. It's fun for all of us, but especially for Lance who LOVES to be with his cousins. There is one downside, however.

It has been my experience that, individually, children are usually fairly well-behaved and easy to rein in when needed. However, you get them together with any number of children similar in age and suddenly you have a pack of wild little hooligans that not only feed off of each other in terms of excitement, but manage to invent all kinds of mischievous things to do and say that they would have never come up with by themselves.

Such was the case today. After calling Lance on the carpet a number of times for, well, acting like a four-year-old, I finally lost my temper. Lance had done something, like pretended to hit a cousin--something I had told him not to do numerous times prior. I caught him mid-act, took him by the arm and sat him down in a corner for time-out. After spending a good 30 seconds trying to get him to look at me, I (in a very angry-mother voice) asked him:

"Lance! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?"

Lance looked at me, totally serious, and replied, "Fourteen."

Callie, Lance, and Bryce