The house is quiet

One of my favorite jokes is about the man who asks the rabbi to help him with his small house. Here is one version of the joke:

----------
A man goes to the rabbi at his wits end.
“Rabbi, I can’t take it any more. I have no peace in my home. I live in a shack so tiny
that my wife and children drive me crazy. The noise, the commotion, it’s driving me
crazy! I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you have a chicken?” the rabbi asks.
“I do,” the man answers.
“Bring your chicken in the house and come back tomorrow.”
The next day the rabbi asks how things are going.
“Awful,” the man replies. “The chicken clucks all night. There are feathers and
chicken poop everywhere.”
“Do you have a goat?” the rabbi asks.
“Yes, a Billy goat in a small pen.”
“Wonderful,” said the rabbi. “Bring your goat into the house.”
The man returns the next day. “The goat ate what little stuffing there was left in our one
chair, he bleats all night and passes gas all day,” the man exclaims.
“Wonderful,” says. “Do you have a cow?”
“I do.”
“You know what to do” says the rabbi.
The next day the man returns. “Rabbi, if you think a goat smells, you ought to try
living with a cow!”
“One more thing,” asks the rabbi. “Go home. Take the cow back to her pasture,
the goat back to his pen and the chicken back to her coop.”
The next day the man appears in shul smiling. “So how are things?” the rabbi
asks.
“Wonderful,” the man exclaimed, “Never better. With only my wife and children
around the house is so quiet and clean. I can stretch out for a good night’s sleep drifting
off to sound of chirping crickets and giggling children. What a blessed and fortunate man
I am.”
----------

Last week we had two more foster care children. Janine picked them up on Memorial Day. These sisters were three and six. The three-year-old played great with BabyBop. The six-year-old is a good kid, but my nine-year-old tended to butt heads with her.

It was a bit crazy with six children.

Friday we got the call that social services had been given the OK from a judge for the two girls to live with their mother, so Janine dropped them off at the social worker's office. Then Saturday our oldest flew to Washington DC for a homeschool field trip.

With only three children our house almost feels empty.


----------
Technorati tags: family