Crisis Averted

In case you had forgotten, our family has partaken in a soda pop embargo. If we complete the year without drinking any, we will get a Wii. A lot of people have heard about this arrangement and assumed that we were saving the money we would spend on a pop toward the purchase, but the truth is, pop isn't really that expensive. Anyway, we are six months in with not so much as a drop of punch, let alone a cola. The kids routinely interrogate their dad when he comes home from a business trip about what he drank. And because my dreams routinely involve shame, it wasn't a surprise when one night I dreamed I was sitting on a couch and two ice cold cans of Coke were before me...I popped them both open and drank every drop....and instantly woke up in a cold sweat.

All that to say, we are taking this pretty seriously.

Which is why it was a terrible moment when Vin came screaching through the front door in hysterics, great elephant tears streaming down his face, wailing that we aren't getting the Wii because of CHARLEIGH!

Confused, I hopped off the couch and tried to make sense of his incoherent sobs. "Mikayla gave her pop and she drank it!" he complained angrily and with no small amount of heartbreak.

I confess, I was already trying to figure out what to do. I headed out the front door where Chuck was indeed sitting with her friends in the neighbors driveway with a very incriminating bottle of Coca-Cola beside her.

By this time her father had arrived on the scene and the two of us whisked her inside just in time to hear Vin declare with all the passion of a jilted lover, "I'm gonna punch her in the FACE!" Robb hands guided him to a chair with a "No. You won't. We'll handle this. You sit."

Back in the bedroom, Charleigh did indeed wear the face of incredible guilt. Her chin juts out and she refuses to answer questions, her eyes darting from one face to another. I'd seen that face so many times, I had mentally jumped ahead to remuneration while her dad worked the interrogation. "WHAT DID YOU DRINK?"

nothing.
More big eyes.

"You'd better answer us!" Charleigh has stonewalled us before and quite frankly, if she wants to keep something from us, we're more than a little nervous that she could indeed, pull it off.

"pawwwwwwwwwwwwwp" she mumbled.

"Why did you drink pop? Why did you break the deal?"

"Cuz."

"Cuz isn't an answer!"

"Cuz......"

Her lip quivered. Then the tears came. This was actually a good sign. At least we would get something out of her. Other times, she has kept up the silence of a Russian spy.

And then, for the first time, Charleigh answered a "WHY?" question. Always before, I was nervous that she didn't really understand cause and effect. Didn't understand what "why?" even meant. All of a sudden though, it was, "I drank pop from a cup from my friend and it had a lid and it was supposed to be water, but she tricked me and it was a long long time ago and it was before the deal and it was with a lid."

From this rather surprising outpouring, we were able to slowly piece together the fact that Calvin saw his sister sitting near the pop and characteristically quizzed his sister about drinking pop. Literal but not always chronological, she was possessed by guilt and immediately took on the look we have all come to equate with poopy underpants, cookies crumbs as evidence of a poorly chosen breakfast, contraband nail polish in between blankets and Charleigh's other peccadilloes. He assumed the worst and reacted accordingly...

When we realized that she was not actually guilty, we scooped her up in our arms for cuddles and reminders to "Always tell the truth!" And Charleigh giggled like only Charleigh can.

And the pop crisis of July 2009 was averted.

goodnight.