Mom Chaser

It all started innocently enough.  When Brennan would arrive home from school, I’d rush him from wherever I was to give him a giant hug.  The kind where I lifted him off the ground or tackled him to the floor with it.  So he started resisting.  Even trying to avoid me.  Rude, right?  His neighborhood friends heard about this and started coming to watch.  A couple of days later when I went to run at him for the hug, he turned around and ran back outside.  So, so did I.  Those kids were NOT expecting that at all.  I chased them all over the neighborhood.  Almost caught them a couple of times, but Brenny is really good at the last-second turn.  Drat!

This has escalated to become a regular occurrence, though I don’t do it every day by any means.  I like to keep them on their toes.  I’ve hidden on the porch, behind bushes, behind other houses, inside our house, etc.  Sometimes I give them a real chase, sometimes I’ve hidden well enough that I catch one by surprise right away and call it good, saving myself the near-vomiting that the exertion causes me.   Most of the time I say, “Sorry, not today folks.”  There is a large group of kids that now follow Brennan to his door every day before going home to their own houses.  I don’t really like doing this.  But I like that I DO do this.  Plus I’m a sucker for a good surprise.  That’s what it really boils down to.

Today as I dreaded knowing that the kids would be home soon and I’d have to decided whether I was in or out, I had a brilliant idea:

Asher!  How about today YOU chase the kids?  And then I got really, truly genius.  And Asher, you should totally DRESS UP like a Mom!!!

And he did.  He tried to back out of it because he felt really embarrassed.  He didn’t want the others to laugh at him even though I explained that that was the point.  At the last second I mentioned that Brian Regan would do this to get a laugh.  He was sold.