Three little angels, all dressed in white,
Trying to get to heaven on the end of a kite.
But the kite it broke and down they all fell
Instead of going to heaven, they all went to...

“Joey!” A shriek rang out.  “Don’t touch that!”

Maria rolled her eyes and hollered back, “He’s only three, he doesn’t know any better!”

A grimy, little boy stomped into the kitchen, towing his sobbing little brother behind him.  “But Mama, he was trying to eat my Lego man!”

Maria sighed and rubbed her head.  Sometimes she hated Saturdays.  Having all three...no, four of her hellions home all at once was a little stressful sometimes.

“Cody,” she said patiently.  “When you yell at him, you scare him.  And then he cries.”

“That’s what I told him.”  A sassy voice interjected.  “But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

Maria looked up to see her daughter, Mary, standing in the doorway.

“He’s a guy, sweetheart.  Sometimes you have to hit them over the head with things.”  Maria informed her.

Mary’s small face creased with confusion.  “But when I hit Caleb Evans, you got mad at me.”

“She’s got you there, Earthgirl.”  Michael slouched into the room, a smirk on his face.

Maria shot him an exasperated look.  “You’re not helping,” she informed him.  Turning back to her daughter, she tried to explain herself.

Michael chuckled, ruffled Cody’s hair and swung Joey up in his arms.  “Come on, big guy.”  He left his wife, his daughter, and his oldest son discussing the word “metaphor” while he went to go scrub the backyard off his youngest child’s face.

Two little angels, all dressed in white,
Trying to get to heaven on the end of a kite.
But the kite it broke and down they all fell.
Instead of going to heaven, they all went to...

Michael and Maria exchanged an amused look.  The conversation about figures of speech had gotten a little out of hand, and Cody and Mary were in the midst of a heated argument about a horse of a different color.

Mary, naturally, insisted that it was all the colors at the same time.

Cody stuck to his guns as a “Wizard of Oz” fan and was positive the horse kept changing colors.

Michael and Maria were just enjoying the show.  It would not have been nearly so funny if the kids had not been so dramatic about the points they were making.

At the moment, Cody was standing on the couch, hosting a reenactment of the critical scene in “Oz” where the horse is first viewed.  Michael somehow was finagled into being the horse, Maria was Dorothy, and Cody himself was the gate keeper.

He had quite sweetly told his sister that she could be Toto.  Or a flying monkey.

She was busy yelling at him from across the room about rainbows and light refraction.  it was obvious to her parents that she had been spending too much time with her Aunt Liz.  Light refraction?  She was seven!

And the two adults were desperately trying not to laugh at their very strange offspring.

Cody and Mary were still yelling as Maria hoisted up her daughter and carried her down the hall.

One little angel all dressed in white,
Trying to get to heaven on the end of a kite.
But the kite it broke and down they all fell
Instead of going to heaven, they all went to...

“But, Daddy, I don’t wanna take a bath!”

Michael looked sternly down at his oldest.  “Don’t whine, Cody.”

Cody pouted and crossed his arms stubbornly.

Michael warned, “Cody...”

“Fine,” a sulky voice said.  And Cody stomped off into the bathroom.

Bath time was always a struggle.  Maria had told him it was because Michael had “unwashed” genes in his side of the pool, whatever that meant.

It generally meant adding tons of bubble bath, a flotilla of boats, a rubber ducky, and a very reluctant child to the bath.

And everyone got wet.

Maria was safely down in the bedroom, participating in the great pajama debate with Mary.  Michael wished it was her night to bathe Cody.

After all, Michael didn’t need two baths a day.  Generally, anyway.

After ten minutes of “Daddy, I can’t get in, its too hot in there!” Five minutes of “Ow! You got soap in my eyes!” and then another ten minutes of “I can’t get out now, Daddy.  It’s cold out there.”  Michael was exhausted.

He carried his slippery son into his bedroom and shoved him into his Batman pajamas.

Then they trekked to Mary’s bedroom and settled down onto the double bed.

It looked like Mary had won the pajama debate tonight.  She was wearing a bright purple leotard and a pair of Blue’s Clues socks.

Michael looked a question at his wife.  She just shrugged and curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.

They shared contented smiles as Cody and Mary argued over what story they would get tonight and Joey slept undisturbed in the next room.

Don’t get excited,
Don’t lose your head,
Instead of going to heaven,
They all went to bed!