August 22nd 2026

*DING!

It was an unmistakeable sound.

Which meant that when I heard it, I knowingly had to pretend that I hadn’t.

Surely the bell hadn’t been intentionally rung… you thought (knowing damn well it had been).

DING!

DING!

You had to laugh.

It sure the fuck had been intentionally rung.

**************************************************

Earlier that morning you had taken the bell.

DING!

DING!

DING!

“Savanah, please stop!” Your youngest was just starting to lose her patience with the ringing.

You had to give it to her, she was handling the raucous far better than you thought.

Savanah was your good friend Rachel’s middle child. Rachel, her husband Marcus and their three young children had come to visit for the night just the day before. Savanah was three, her oldest Aria was five, and their youngest Atticus, was just a little over a year old.

All of your kids had gotten along so well. Beverly thought she was hot shit and it seemed like Aria and Savanah would have backed that up… they followed her around, making her sit in the middle either for dinner or breakfast or when it was time to watch tv or read books. Finally Beverly was the oldest… at least of all the girls and the baby. She was always a good kid but she was on her extra best behavior, setting a good example for the ‘little kids’ as she put it.

While she probably would have lost her shit if her brothers had been ringing a bell right by her ear, she lasted quite some time before finally caving with Savanah.

DING!

Savanah laughed.

“You know I used to wonder why my mother was the way she was,” Rachel laughed the night before after dinner when the kids were playing in the other room… you remembered on more than one occasion while growing up with Rachel right next door, her mom absolutely losing her shit, yelling and sometimes giving a swift whack to one of the four kids. As a kid you found it unhinged.

As an adult and parent to three kids, you no longer found the behavior unhinged. No… ‘sympathetic’ to her plight was what came to mind these days.

Rachel shared in the sentiment…

“I don’t want to be this way either,” she lamented. The two of you in the kitchen helping to scrape dirty dishes into the garbage pail before stacking them in the sudsy sink.

“I’ll have the best intentions… ya know? I don’t even whack the kids but I’ll be like, ‘hey girls, please stop hitting each other, that’s enough.’ And then they’ll still be going at it and again, I’m like, ‘Girls, please stop. Mommy asked you to stop.’ But of course they keep going and next thing you know I’m like, ‘CUT THE FUCKING SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU HIT YOUR SISTER AGAIN I’M GOING TO LOSE IT…”

”HAHAHAAHAH Oh my God… same… to a T. I’m cool as a fucking cucumber until I’m not. They just fucking push me… and then I feel like a goddamn psychopath because ‘holy shit there chief… you’re going to let a kid get you going like that?’ And of course the answer is, ‘yes, yes I am going to let them get me to that point.’ That’s what they do…”

You both laughed.

”I mean at least I’ll apologize for it after… I feel like we’re good there but Jesus Christ…” you said.

”Oh I know… me too. Show them I’m human I guess… that I make mistakes… but even that can be tough because then I find myself gaslighting them… or trying not to… like ‘Mommy is sorry dear, she shouldn’t have yelled at you when you were body slamming your sister… BUT…’ and then I realize, holy shit… I’m gaslighting them with the whole BUT thing… ‘BUT IT’S YOUR FUCKING FAULT FOR PUSHING ME OVER THE EDGE…’ So I have to bite my tongue on the BUT…”

You had to laugh at that too… You had found yourself in that same situation on more than one occasion. Biting the ‘but.’

”Tell me though,” Rachel wanted to know… ”when do they stop beating the crap out of each other?”

You and your husband both cracked up… before you could say a word, David his hands sudsy in the sink chimed in, ”I’ll let you know if or when that ever happens…”

“Yours still fight like that?” Rachel asked in astonishment.

”I mean I have a picture in my phone of my daughter beating my eldest with a snow shovel so…”

Everyone laughed.

”Kids just do the darnedest things…” you added with a saccharin layer of gosh - golly for effect.

*******************************************************************

Beverly however… she was composed with the whole bell thing. Which on one hand it made sense, it was far easier to take a snow shoveled swing at a sibling that made a part time job out of busting your ass, than it was to get angry at a near stranger… and a much younger one at that.

When she finally couldn’t take it anymore though, and Savanah laughed, refusing to surrender the annoyance, Bev gently but firmly removed the bell from Savanah’s hand just as you made your way to Beverly and plucked the bell from hers.

“I’ll take this,” you said.

“Why?” She wanted to know, as if she was in some sort of trouble…

“I’m doing everyone a favor,” Savanah no longer interested in the bell… out of sight out of mind, was on to the next thing, “I know no one wants to hear it anymore…”

“Oooooooh…” Beverly said, “That’s smart.”

“I’m going to put it somewhere out of reach,” but before you could find a spot you spied Atticus pulling himself up with a dainty end table that teetered and wobbled under his weight. You put the little bell onto your grandfather’s work bench in the large open living space and made your way to the baby before he could pull the table over.

Your new home was a lot of things.

Baby - proof wasn’t one of them.

*******************************************************************************

The night before David had made a large dinner. You ate fresh pasta with red sauce and finely grated cheese. Thick homemade slices of bread were passed out with silky soft butter. There were wax beans cooked in olive oil, garlic and sea salt. Zucchini was grilled with the grated cheese, butter, and fresh herbs. The kids ate chunks of breaded chicken with ketchup and homemade french fries. They passed around pickles and two different kinds of seasoned cheese curds. Veggies from the garden and heads of lettuce from the farm David worked at once a week rounded out the carb and cheese heavy meal. You poured glasses of wine and David brought several types of beer to the table for he and Marcus. The kids had Juicy Juice and apple cider… a treat for them as well.

You talked about the church project and their new home.

Marcus told you how cool the church was. He had been like a kid on an adventure, so excited to see it all as soon as they arrived.

At dinner he mentioned again how cool it all was… and also that he would never in a million years take on such a venture.

“I fucking hate,” he almost sneered at the mere thought of it, “working on the house.” He laughed, “I hate it. It’s the last thing I want to do. This would be my nightmare… all this renovation work. I give you a lot of credit… I could never.”

Rachel shook her head in agreement.

“Oh for sure. I respect that. I get it, too. With our first house I felt the same way… I hated doing any work to it. Felt like hell. A total hassle. When we had the money to work on the house, we didn’t have the time… and when we had the time to work on the house, we didn’t have the money. We were working… it was the last thing we wanted to do… we specifically bought a house that didn’t need any work. I mean that’s not how it went down… the house wound up needing a TON of work… but I think for us it was the mindset. With this we knew… well I mean we didn’t know the extent… we knew it was ‘a lot’ but not this much… but still… we kind of knew what we were getting into. We signed up for it, ya know? So it was different this time around…”

“I’d still hate it,” Marcus said. We all laughed.

“I get it… I mean that’s all we do now… work for the church…”

Rachel laughed, “Sorry, just hearing you talk about working for the church has me laughing…”

“I get it… believe me… the irony that ME as an atheist is spending all of my time, energy, and money on ‘the church,’ is not lost on me. It’s definitely pretty fucking hilarious.”

You talked politics and family and house keeping and careers. The kids, Marcus and Rachel all ate “Let’s Go Buffalo,” ice cream and that turned into a conversation about how much you loved Perry’s. You talked ‘growing’ up, parenting, state parks, road trips from hell, accommodations from hell, and crazy shit your kids all did.

“I’m telling you,” Marcus laughed, “If any of our kids ever joins a gang or gets into organized crime it will be Savanah. That kid is SO smart. If the school ever calls about one of our kids in trouble… I won’t even have to ask who it was. I’ll just know.”

“Oh my god… and the things she says… that kid knows how to drop the ‘F bomb’ with all the precision of a sailor. She’ll be like, ‘that guy is fucking dumb, did you just see what he did?’ And meanwhile she’s three and I’ll be telling her not to talk like that…” added Rachel laughing.

“Mine too… the blessing is that they can turn it off when the situation warrants it,” you said.

“Her too… she knows. Kid is smart,” Rachel added on her middle child’s behalf.

You understood. Your kids were so well behaved outside of the home, inside the home too but also they were funny, they had adult humor, they swore (perfectly) and they were also really good kids. As far as you could see Rachel and Marcus were doing a great job too. Their kids were good, they were respectful of everyone and everything… Savanah just happened to be a bit mischievous and hey… if nothing else, the stories would only get better with time.

**************************************************************

The following afternoon David had to make a work call. You, Rachel and Marcus packed an overtired Atticus into his stroller and went for a walk. By the time you returned Atticus was sound asleep.

Rachel and Marcus had the next leg of their journey ahead of them and while they didn’t have too far of a drive it was already getting late in the day. They wheeled the stroller into the church’s front vestibule where it was cool and quiet.

“I’m going to leave the stroller with Atticus here while we finish packing and loading the car…” Rachel whispered to Marcus and I.

The poor baby had been so overtired that they couldn’t do a thing with him. Getting him down for a nap enabled them to think with some clarity while getting the car and girls ready.

Marcus went upstairs to the bedroom to load up their suitcases with Rachel and you went down into the family room to check on the two girls and your kids. As you walked down the flight of stairs you were greeted by Savanah in the family room.

“Where’s mommy and daddy and Atticus?” She wanted to know.

“Atticus is sleeping in his stroller. I think mommy and daddy are upstairs packing,” you said.

You swore that you could see wheels turning in her little head…

“Atticus is sleeping?“ She questioned.

“Yes.”

A few minutes had passed when you realized that you didn’t see Savanah anymore. Beverly and Aria were reading a book while the two boys played video games. Savanah was nowhere in sight. You decided to check upstairs.

When you got to the first landing there she was, making her way upstairs to David’s office right off the front vestibule and sanctuary.

“Where are you going?” You asked her whispering as Atticus slept in the stoller.

Savanah stopped dead on the stairs and turned to face you. You swore you saw her slip something behind her back as she turned around.

“To find daddy,” she said…

You were certain her eyes twinkled the way your kids did before they did something they probably shouldn’t be doing.

“Well he’s upstairs ok? You can go get him… but don’t wake up your brother ok? Mommy and daddy need him to take a nap.”

“Ok.” She said as she shook her head to make sure you knew she understood the assignment.

Confident that you had done your part and that Savanah would go upstairs you returned downstairs to the family room but it wasn’t long before you heard it.

DING!

That unmistakeable sound.

No way… no freaking way… was she doing what you thought she was doing?

DING!

Again there it was.

DING!

DING!

She was!

You made your way up the stairs as quickly and quietly as you could go.

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

You could hear Rachel panicked, coming down the stairs from up above, the two of you converging on the landing in David’s office at the same time just to see Savanah halfway in the stroller with the bell ringing it just inches from a sleeping Atticus’s ear.

Atticus stirred and sleepily sat up, his face in a cute cherub like grin, four little teeth and a mouthful of drool, excited for his older sister to be halfway in the stroller with him.

Rachel however was less than pleased, “SAVANAH! What are you doing!”

“He was awake already!” She stammered, caught off guard and almost fell out of the stroller.

You didn’t say a word but you knew for a fact that Atticus had been sound asleep just minutes before Savanah came a ringing with the pilfered bell.

You swooped in to grab Atticus and spent the next twenty minutes playing with him and picking flowers from your ‘chaos garden’ that you pretended to sniff and then sneeze while he laughed uncontrollably. Keeping him content with product from your ‘chaos plot’ definitely felt apropos…

Not long after the ten of you gathered in the family room and then again outside in front of the church to take group pictures, you said your goodbyes and gave your bear hugs and promised to get together again soon. You and Rachel had grown up as each other’s shadows and seeing all of your kids play together had you feeling all kinds of sentimental. You caught yourself wiping away tears as they drove off, and when you found the bell on one of the window sills you had to laugh.

You were so thankful for the opportunity to share this chapter of your lives with Rachel and her family and also that the church afforded you the chance to easily house visitors. You were excited for them to come back again… and also for all the other visitors that had come and would continue to come to the church. Who’d have thought you’d be inviting people to join you at ‘your church.’

And that made you laugh all over again.

*Rachel and her family’s names were changed to protect privacy… as I do with all of my entries :)

Left to right, top to bottom: “Savanah,” Beverly, “Aria,” and baby “Atticus” hanging out at the table. We were easily able to fit the ten of us here with room to spare. Next time we may have to put all of the food though, on a separate table. Once the feasts came out, table top space was limited haha!