It's never a good sign when your child gets in the car after school and starts out with, "Mom, please don't say anything until I get all the way through the story."

He's had his first trip to the principal's office.

I would be a little more uptight if I didn't grow up with a brother. He was always up to some mischief that could have also been called 'experiments'. How else would you label tests that answer questions like, "What will happen if I karate chop the toilet paper holder?". Or, "What's the velocity necessary to swing on this tree vine to get to the other tree?" Followed by, "How long does it take to be able to draw breath after slamming to the ground?" Then there's the sort of test that asks, "What's the most vindictive way to end my source of pain?" A great mystery of why my Disco Donald Duck record was wet one afternoon many years ago was solved at my wedding rehearsal dinner. My brother confessed that he peed on it. He was sick of hearing it.

He came by it honestly. My Dad, when he was a boy, needed to answer pressing questions for himself like, "What will be the reaction of my teacher and fellow students if I put a tack in each of their chairs?"

So you see how it would be understandable that I would be a 3rd grader walking down the hall and see my brother grabbing his ankles for the teacher to give him a walloping (boy things were different then)! And it may be understandable how Josh got in trouble for playing a game called, "If I Can Pull You Out Of Your Chair, You Lose". He lost, alright.

I take heart by the fact that my Dad and brother are now two of the most respectable, Christ-honoring -- and good-humored, I might add -- men I know. I couldn't be prouder to introduce you to either of them. If Josh turns out to be like either of them it will a mother's labor that was not in vain.

Our conversation in the car ended in a barrage of tears and fears that there would not be any presents under the tree. Oh, repentance! It's a wonderful thing...