FunnySauce: Dog Pile on Daddy

Sunday is family time. But do you ever find that it is work to get the whole family together, and that your family-time plans can dissolve into disaster?

Tonight we decided to play Attack Uno. This is not a version of Uno our family made up. It is an actual game we received as a Christmas gift and it comes with an electronic button-controlled beeping card shooter. When you would usually be required to draw a card, you instead push the button and a random number of cards, from 0 to 7, shoot out. It is always a relief when zero shoot out. But tonight the shooter was "hot" and everybody had a lot of cards and the game was taking too long. Ellie (who's six years old) had selected the game for tonight, so when she quit, threw down her cards, climbed on mom's lap and closed her eyes, we should have known it was time to end the game.

In an effort to hurry the game along, we started adding helpful comments like "come on!", "go!", "push the button!", "tonight please", etc. We also had to wait through a time out for Jonathan to go through his new breathing exercises that help him to not cry. (Which we all did amazingly well because we are appreciative and proud of his efforts, he is a very kind-hearted kid and it is quite interesting to watch a ten-year-old in the middle of Attack Uno close his eyes and go into a meditative state.) Of course, these feelings of frustration and hostility did not deter us from finishing the game. Finally, Madison called out "Uno" for the first time in the game at about the 37th minute of play time and to everyone's relief was able to lay down her final card on her next turn.

Shelley then asked that we gather around for family prayer before going to bed. A that moment, Ellie announced that she was not tired, Jonathan then knocked over Madison's balancing act on the couch, Madison punched Jonathan and I began my lecture I learned from my dad on not hitting younger siblings. Obviously, the "family time" tension had mounted too high for my sweet wife, because as we all knelt down to pray, instead of praying she started laughing. Her laughter popped the bubble of tension and everybody started laughing hysterically. I was laughing so hard that I was lying of the ground trying to catch my breath when Ellie yelled, "dog pile." All four of my kids jumped on top of me and pinned me down. Riley, our Airedale terrier, thinks this is great fun and places his mangled stuff cat on top of me and begins to lick and slobber all over my face.

After Shelley finally convinced the kids to roll off me, Jonathan had a beaming smile on his face and declared, "Now that was the funnest thing we did all day!"