Bedlamites

Today during General Conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland created a new word, which will become commonplace among members of the Church. http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/an-ensign-to-the-nations?lang=eng  He was talking about parents' efforts to hold Family Home Evening in spite of the bedlam - and the bedlamites!  It piqued my curiosity to find some bedlamite stories in our own family.  I didn't find anything related to a particular home evening, but I did remember a picture that I took. It was in December of 1990.   Five bedlamites were responsible for this disaster:  Every toy that we had was pulled out of toy boxes or off the shelves.  They emptied all of the puzzle pieces out of the boxes.  I don't think I've ever seen such a mess since then.  Needless to say, it took us a long time to get things picked up - especially sorting all of those pieces to the Smurf puzzles.

As I searched through my journals, I did find an amusing incident that was tied to a family home evening in August of 1992.  It reads as follows: 

Four more weeks(until school starts), can I survive?  Not if too many of the days left are like these.  When I gave out job assignments today, I was yelled at, given all sorts of excuses; and in general, no one cooperated.  Their jobs have stretched until nearly 2:00 this afternoon, and they did not really have long ones!  Brian had to first make his bed and then pick up his room.  I was mending in the sewing room.  He came in with very sad eyes and a quivering chin and said, "I guess you won't be seeing me much anymore".  I looked at him puzzled, and then caught on.  "Are you moving?", I asked.  "Yes", he replied.   I asked him to please do his jobs before he left.  He didn't like that and was still threatening to move this afternoon.  Tonight is Monday, Family Home Evening.  I always have a good treat for them.  Tonight there will be none.  When they ask me why, I will pull out my list of reasons - all of which are the very same ones that they gave me this morning.  I wonder how that will go over?

Curious as to how this worked, I continued reading in my journal and found out that Justin stalked off, Megan burst into tears, Katie retreated to her book and Brian knew he wouldn't get a treat because he hadn't eaten his dinner.  Bonnie must have been the only one who did her chores that day, because she and I went for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. 

Kevin, Katie and I had a good chuckle today as I read this account to them.