Sunday, April 19, 1998 - Robes, Flowers, Jeeps, and Sickos

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Remember the recipe card holder Joseph made (‘TECHER’) and the card I made to go with it? Well, he gave it to Bethany Wright, Bobby’s mother and Joseph’s science teacher. Here is the thank-you card he received in return:

Dere Josuf,

Thanx fore the teechurz recipy holdur. I wuz gladd to cee that siuns wuz not chopt, minsed ore skrambuld. U maa need an xtra spuunfull of speeling and grammur for krispy kookies.

Love, Mrs. Rite

Woodwork: A+

Handwriting: A+

Creativity: A+

Spelling: F-

That sure brought back memories of school days with Bethany, who was a grade ahead of me. I used to write silly letters to her, put them in her locker, and then find an answer in my own locker a couple of hours later. Without fail, they were hilarious. I saved several, and still have them.

Tuesday, Larry put the new strings into my piano, replacing the ones I had broken, and I tuned them. Much better!

Joseph’s new robe is done, in plenty of time for his birthday. Since he needed a robe, and it’s made of fleece, which is good for this cooler weather, but probably not so good for our summer weather, I gave it to him already. After that, I sewed a dozen or more cute buttons into a fabric book for Victoria--lady bugs, turtles, bunnies, footballs, soccerballs, flower baskets, etc. She thinks it’s pretty nifty, and it makes a nice book for church.

I then sewed Caleb’s shirt, a mulberry-colored western style with navy-starred yokes and gold-striped piping, and I’m halfway done with Hester’s dress. But now I will have to put that dress on the bottom of the stack and sew something else, because the entire back piece is missing. What on earth did I do with it?! Bother. I suppose it’s folded neatly with another piece of material somewhere, hopefully with the fabric I’ve already cut, in which case I will run across it sooner or later. If I accidentally put it back in my fabric closet, it’ll take an Act of Congress, a Sheriff’s Posse, and The National Guard to track it down. Furthermore, it was an old scrap of white linen, and there was only just enough, and I don’t know where in the world I’d ever find a piece of material to match. Bother again.

Tuesday night after the kids were all in bed, Larry took me for a trial run in the crewcab. It rides remarkably well, drives excellently, and cuts a closer corner than ever expected; but it lays a smoke screen like you wouldn’t believe. It improved somewhat with use, and we were hopeful that the cause was old fuel, old oil, and the fact that it hadn’t run for about a year. But it now has all new fuel and oil, and additives, too; and it hasn’t improved much. So Larry suspects the computer is bad; and, if it is, it’s a $650-problem. Good used ones are nearly unheard of.

One day I said to Victoria, “You’re a little Cutie Pie!” and she mimicked, “Pewie Kie!”

Thursday Larry went to Kearney to get parts for the Suburban of Charbonneau’s that was supposed to have been done Wednesday. He’s had all sorts of troubles trying to put a new transmission in the thing; I think they would have been ahead to simply leave the manual one in there. Now something else went wrong, and Larry is planning to go to Guthrie, Oklahoma, to get a pickup he bought some time back which has the parts he needs for the Suburban. Furthermore, this is a job for which we will receive no remuneration--it was figured into the original deal, more’s the pity.

To make matters worse, I sat down to pay some bills, opened a letter, and discovered a customer had put a stop payment on a sizable check we’d deposited a week earlier, because he wanted the delayed wiper fixed and the seat belts hooked down. Troubles and trials! At least I hadn’t written out a whole volley of checks and mailed them off already.

Victoria is walking better every day; when she falls down, she says, “PLOP!” And if it hurts, she shakes her head and says, “Dee-uh, dee-uh!”

I finally found a little gardening shovel just like the one I lost--all one piece construction, with a big rubber handle..... at our trusty Wal-Mart. That got me so enthused, I filled my whole shopping cart with flowers. When will I ever learn, an entire cart-load is too much for me to cope with in one day?!

But I got ’em planted, I did I did. Pansies, dahlias, and red flame roses in big decorative pots on the front porch; burgundy and double white mums along the walk; purple and pink hyacinths under the red maple; Hawaii blue ageratums beside the drive; pink-striped tulips on the other side; and white and purple, burgundy, and yellow pansies, white and purple pinwheel petunias, and lavender and yellow mums in the north and south flower beds. It started sprinkling, but I hardly got wet at all--because Caleb came rushing out the front door with an umbrella, which he held over my head the whole while it was raining.

It was cold outside, what with the rain falling, and my hands in wet, muddy gardening gloves; so I brought a steaming mug of coffee out to help warm me up. Now, I’ve been saying for a long time that coffee mugs are magnetic, and children are magnets. Knowing this, and seeing that Joseph was outside playing with his remote-controlled Jeep, I carefully set the mug down in a snug little corner by the garage door.

S P L L A A A A A T

Joseph backed up and tripped over it. Mind you, he’d never before stepped in that spot in his life. So there was my coffee, running down the driveway. Good grief.

We have some neighbors, two houses down, who have the horridest two little boys you’d ever hope never to meet. We go out of our way to try to be nice to them, in the interest of Preserving Peace With The Neighbors, and all that, and sometimes the little boys enjoy playing with our children, much to the annoyance of their parents, who don’t want them to have anything to do with us. The father once, having seen a pedal car of the older boy’s on our lawn, shouted at the top of his voice, “Paul, you @#%&*%*@ brat, if you leave a #&%*$()# toy on their lawn ONE MORE TIME, I’m going to throw all your *@% ()$ toys in the !@%#%$%#! garbage!!”

The parents are mean to the boys, and the older boy is mean to the little one. One day Teddy saw the older one jerking madly on the little boy’s tricycle, nearly dumping it over. The little one, Dylan, was hanging on for dear life, screaming at the top of his lungs. Teddy, unable to bear watching that kind of abuse, ran to Dylan’s rescue, grabbing the tricycle and holding it steady, and saying to Paul, while looking him straight in the eye, “You shouldn’t treat your little brother like that! You should be nice to him, and then he’d really like you! But that’s awful, to try to make him fall off! He might really get hurt!”

Well, Teddy made no points with Paul, but Dylan, who’s about two, loves him forever. He followed patiently after Teddy the rest of the afternoon, dragging along his tricycle and patting on its seat, saying to Teddy, “Do you want to ride my sicko??” with his high-pitched, piping little voice cracking every time he said, ‘sicko?’

I think that’s heartbreaking, to be entrusted with innocent, helpless little lives, and then not love them enough to nurture them, teach them, defend them, watch out for them. That poor little boy is simply starved for love.

I said to our children that evening, after Teddy told us this story, “Just imagine if one of you would be jerking on a riding toy of Caleb’s or Victoria’s, about to make them fall on their head on a cement driveway!”

Caleb’s eyes were huge. “Nobody would ever do that to me, and I would never do that to Victoria!”

Victoria looked on, her eyes just as wide. “Bi-roar-yuh!” (that’s how she says ‘Victoria’) she said in agreement, nodding her head seriously.

I wonder how much she understood of all that? Anyway, she certainly knows she’s loved!

When Joseph was driving his Jeep around, he headed it down the sidewalk to the north, having seen Paul and Dylan go into the house earlier, and not knowing their mother was about to set them loose (which she does every afternoon during the soap operas, rain or snow, hail or sleet, ‑40° or +125°). Just as the Jeep approached their driveway, Paul came racing around the corner. He stooped down and made ready to snatch up the Jeep. (Our $150 Jeep!) Joseph, who’s gotten to be pretty handy with the switches, promptly hit reverse, backed that little rig right through that boy’s legs, about-faced, and took off like a shot straight for our house. And Paul was left peering through his legs, trying desperately to keep from doing an unplanned somersault. haha If that didn’t look funny!

Last night, Keith picked up Victoria, lifted her over his head, and placed her on his shoulders, then walked about the house. Victoria sat perfectly still and grinned from ear to ear. Directly he put her back down. Dorcas handed her a doll. She promptly slung it over her head and, holding its hands, wrapped its arms around her neck. It wasn’t quite right, so she tried it again. That time she wound up holding its feet, wrapping its legs around her neck; and the doll’s head was left, upside down, bonking against her back.

The littles all screeched with laughter, and Victoria sat still, holding the doll’s feet, and smiling smugly at her audience. What a funny baby.

Today Hester’s temperature was over 101°, and her ears, head, and throat hurt; and my ears, head, and throat hurt, too; so we stayed home from church. This afternoon we went for a drive around White Tail Lake. Coming around the farthest, most uninhabited stretch, we spotted a mound of white on a big clump of bulrushes. Larry grabbed the binoculars while I grabbed my 600mm lens and hastily began attaching it. Sure enough! It was a female mute swan sleeping on her nest! A four-wheeler went by and awoke her, so I got several good pictures of her with her head up. I’ve seen trumpeter swans and black-headed swans, but this is the first time I’ve seen a mute swan, I think.

We left quietly, hoping nobody would disturb her. Perhaps we’ll get to see the cygnets soon. Wouldn’t that be neat?