When I share funny things that my boys do or say I always hear things like, “You could write a book about this stuff!” & it’s probably true. In fact, I’m pretty sure the story I’m about to share with you will {if it isn't all ready} become legend in our family. A story that has been told since it happened and is so well known amongst family that even their friends know about it.
You see, when we first moved to Australia our boys were 5 & 3. They had cousins here who were all much older then them & our eldest was going through the whole, “I must show off to be noticed” phase that drove his mother insane. It was a long lived phase & has only recently been replaced with the, “I’m too cool to show-off” phase.
Anyway, Morgan has always been an outgoing little boy, unlike his brother who was a good three months old before anyone besides myself could hold him without the poor child having a major break down. Morgan was much more content, unless a Dr or nurse was near him. So, it was little surprise that when they met their Australian relatives that he took it all in stride. I’m pretty sure the months of prep work & prayers played a huge roll in it too. Not to mention the Skype conversations Morgan often had his with his Australian Nana & the occasional Auntie or cousin who’d be around for it.
All in all my boys felt they knew their relatives reasonably well, all though Jayden did spend a year hiding behind his pacifier and only coming out from behind it long enough to say, “Me too!” or “Smile!” {he walked around with a camera being just like his daddy and asking people to stand still so he could capture them on it.}
When their eldest cousin had her first birthday party while we were here the boys were excited and delighted. Birthdays are a huge deal in our home & they felt that everyones birthday should be equally celebrated and they intended to do just that. As it turned out not only did their eldest cousin here have a birthday but their youngest cousin in Tassie was having her birthday party at the same time. So this was double special for them. We bought presents, and only narrowly escaped purchasing boyish items. The boys spent little care chucking them into gift bags because they were more excited about how much they were sure certain cousins would love these gifts.
I spent an hour prepping Jayden that other guests would be present. People he didn’t know. They wouldn’t be total strangers because they were his cousins friends so he wouldn’t need to be worried about them. {He actually made some cupcakes to share with his cousins once and when they showed up with an extra person in tow this child ran to his room and hid in his bed until I dragged him back out and held him while he handed out cupcakes.. no joke!} Then we headed out for an evening with family.
My children were, and generally are, a big enough spectacle to their cousin's friends. For one thing my children sport “American” accents {whatever in the world that means.} and they are often plagued with the annoying age old question, “Are you on holiday?” {We get asked that at least a dozen times a week.} When they deny being on holiday and explain they were born in America but now live in Australia these friends often ask the cousins because they doubt that it could possibly be true. And, if all that isn’t enough to make them a big spectacle my boys are not traumatized or hindered in anyway to carry on conversations with kids twice their age or adults.
If you don’t homeschool, please don’t take this the wrong way, but not only is it a personality thing for my kids I also truly believe it’s a side effect of homeschooling. There is no age, grade, or boy/girl segregation generally during outings, events, and classes thus the children are use to communicating, as a whole, with a varying group of people. I am not, however, saying that everything they communicate is worthy of listening to. All though I will never forget the look on the face of the librarian who sat and patiently listened to one child prattle off all the books he loved to read the most while the other one dutifully explained to her how he came to learn why boats can float.
Anyway, back to the story at hand.. During the course of the evening Morgan enjoyed, very much, chatting with his cousins older friends. I think part of it was because this cousin was top on his list of girls he might marry someday, she was only slightly debunked by the mysterious Tooth Fairy. So meeting all her friends, and they were real live teenagers!!, just made it that much more enticing to him.
At some point during the evening chocolates were handed out. I honestly don’t remember if it was a gift that was shared around, party bag goodies, or just some of the actual goodies being consumed. Regardless chocolates needed consuming and my boys were not about, for one minute, to pass up on the opportunity to do so. And they didn’t. The problem was, when they were done they had some wrappers in their hands. They were not in a room with a bin to dispose of them in, so after debating this for a mere second my son walks over and announces very loudly, “Here you can have our trash!”
Was this intended for his cousin or a friend he was feeling sweet about? I can assure you that very few of us will ever remember that part of the story, what we can remember is that from the depths of the kitchen we heard a half dozen or more teenagers bust up laughing so hard that my children quickly consumed more chocolates and repeated the entire sequence of events. This of course caused another wave of laughter to erupt amongst the children.
At which point their cousin, who could barely breathe from laughing, comes down to the kitchen and retells the story with her best {all though I’m sorry fellows but those fake American accents are killing me, Sorry Em.} American accent & then burst out laughing again. Mr S somewhere between amusement and horror ran up to retrieve the boys and pointed out where the bin actually was. But, to heighten the entire "horror effect" the boys didn’t really care where the bin was. After all, their cousin had not only accepted the “gift” but done so with much laughter, & they really wanted to keep their cousin's friends laughing.
This entire 2 minutes of nonsense became so well known amongst their cousins school mates that The Cousins actually had a waiting list for their next birthday party. To this day when The Cousins invite people to a gathering, event, or party they quickly ask, “Oh will your little American cousins be there!!” Fast forward to every gathering we’ve ever had & when trash is collected this hideous moment is relived over and over again.
While camping recently, I {not to brag or anything tee-hee .. you had to be there!!} remembered bags for trash. At each meal I’d pull out a small bag and afterwards go around and collect trash. When I got to my brother-in-law he starts to scrape plates into my little tiny grocery bag and says, “Here you can have our trash!” in a very, I’m sorry to say, bad imitation of an American accent. {Again, whatever that is..} Then his face lights up and he grabbed as many plates as he could and said, “Wait I can really say this and really mean it!!”
As I’m tying up the trash bag he says, “For your birthday Morgan I’m going to give you some trash.” {It’s the last word they really aim for that American twang..} Morgan laughs, and his uncle says, “No really I am.” His uncle is quiet for about thirty seconds then nods his head vigorously and says, “Yes! Oh yeah, I’m going to make a delivery to your house on Friday before I go to work!”
Thursday Mr S receives a text message that said "gift" will be left in the driveway at 7:30 am on Friday. There’s much excitement over how he wouldn’t really put trash in the driveway, but then there was the doubt in the boys voices too. When they woke up on Friday at 6:45 to announce loudly to the world that 1, It was Morgan’s 11th birthday & 2, “Mermaids are worse then squids.” {Please, don’t ask I still have no idea why that was such an important statement!!} I told them to go sit quietly in the lounge room and wait to see what kind of trash Uncle Chris was going to bring them.
So sit they did & when he pulled up and pulled a child sized green wheelie bin with balloons on it out of his car and up into the driveway there were squeals of laughter coming from the lounge room. They came running back into the bedroom to announce what was now in the driveway. I told them they should go check in the bin it probably had trash in it after all.
Out they ran and dragged it back in to read off the sign:
Funnier yet, when we opened the bin there really was trash inside of it, along with unblown balloons, popped party poppers, and a handful of gifts. All of which added to the laughter of the entire situation.
The boys didn't even care about the gifts because the fact that The Cousins actually gave them trash for their birthday was so funny that they had more fun sorting out the trash then they did paying attention to the fact that there was a half dozen presents to unwrap!
One thing is for certain, the line, “You can have our trash.” is going down in the family history books! In fact, the sign that was on the bin is now hanging on Morgan's bedroom door, and will most likely end up in one of his scrapbooks. Years from now I can see people still giving each other trash for their birthdays but not quite remembering why or how it started.. And of course, no one says trash anymore, everyone says trash now. Because the Aussies are trying to say it in their posh American accents & we Americans are trying to say it in the so-called posh Aussie-American accent. What, and you thought this would be a normal family legend/story??
