I've Died so I Can't Get Up

My brother, Tim, has four sisters and I don't know who this was harder on, Tim or Dad.  Seeing his only son swimming in a sea of estrogen, my Dad, who according to family stories had a wrestling mat on the floor of the family room as a kid where he and his four brothers would do battle, often felt that Tim was not getting the "toughening-up" necessary to make a real man out of him.  So, naturally, Dad took it upon himself to oversee Tim's masculinity training from a young age.  It was not uncommon, in our home, to see Tim and Dad rolling around on the floor trying to pin each other.

One of Dad's signature moves was to collapse on top of Tim and then go completely loose, becoming dead weight.  Dad would then start saying, "I've died, Tim. What are you going to do?"  For those who have never tried it, extricating yourself from beneath a 'corpse' twice your weight, is a lot harder than it seems.  Tim would wiggle and struggle and threaten to play dirty ("I'm gonna wet my pants!"), but despite his protests, he must have thoroughly enjoyed the exercise, because I've seen him perform the same move on more than one of my kids, and I'm sure it is only a matter of time before little Charlie, Tim's son, is exposed to it as well. 

Yesterday, in a rare moment of silliness, I tried a similar move on Bryce.  Bryce wanted to pull me out of the recliner and instead, I went limp.  "I've died, Bryce.  What are you going to do?"  Imagine my surprise, when after only a second of hesitation, instead of trying to force me up, Bryce threw his arms around me and said, "I'm going to hug you and wish you were still alive!"

Awww, I love that boy!