Monday, Caleb stayed home from school sick, and Lydia came home early. The next morning, Joseph got sick at 6:30 a.m. He had not yet missed a day of school this year, and he was looking forward to getting perfect attendance. So, when he began feeling better about 8:00 a.m., he started getting dressed for school--but he promptly got sick again, and was sick all the rest of the day. So much for perfect attendance.
Larry went hunting again that morning. He saw a doe with two yearlings. They saw him, too. No, he didn’t get a deer.
I baked a couple of chickens for supper that evening. Larry came home late from work, and then he fell asleep before the chicken was out of the oven. When it did come out, the urchins and rug rats fell upon it like ravenous beasts and starvelous vultures...and when Larry woke up and went to have some, there was not a speck left--except perhaps a bone or a gristle or two. And he was going to save a couple of pieces for his lunch, too! Good grief. I didn't know the kiddos were scarfing it all down, or I would've saved him some.
I decided I’d better bake a couple more chickens the next night. When they were nearly done, Lydia came trotting into the kitchen asking, “What’s for supper?”
Caleb replied, “Turkey and icky stuff.” (That latter was in reference to the fire-roasted vegetable blend that was simmering on the stove.)
I said, “What we need to do with these vegetables is add tomato juice and lots of chili spices.”
Teddy made a terrible face and shivered. “That made my tail get bushy,” he remarked.
Once again, before we knew it, there was nothing but clean bones left in the roaster. Next time, I will definitely bake three. (Yes, Larry did get some this time.)
Dorcas finished several more medium-sized wreaths. She’s getting better at it; I think each wreath is prettier than the last one.
Caleb has now lost two bottom teeth. When he pulled the first one out, he announced, “There! I finally got it!” He shook his head. “Boy, am I glad to have that thing out.” With that, he marched straight over to the trashcan and flung the tooth right in.
I was surprised. “Caleb! Did you just throw your tooth away?!”
He looked even more surprised. “Yes,” he replied, looking at me.
“Didn’t you want to save it?” I asked.
He looked puzzled. “Well, I don’t need it…” He changed his mind. “Maybe I will.”
A lengthy search was conducted through a garbage can half full of food, papers, boxes, bags, and such like; but the tooth was never seen again. Finally Caleb shrugged.
“Well, I don’t really need it,” he said, feeling the empty spot with his finger.
Uncle Robert, my mother’s brother, died, and Loren and Janice went to the funeral in Champagne, Illinois. He'd suffered from Alzheimer's for some time. That's always especially sad, I think, when a person of such intelligence and humor and personality gets that awful disease, and slowly turns into someone we cannot recognize.
Guess what, guess what?! Charles and Susan have a new baby girl: Danica Jo, 4 pounds 12 ounces, 18 ¼ inches long, born at 12:20 p.m. Thursday, the 2nd. And she’s just fine. We are very thankful. God does answer prayer. We're so glad that baby is safely here, and healthy. She was in an incubator for a little while, because she gets cold easily. They came home from the hospital Saturday, and the baby has a little stick-on thermometer under her arm so that they can tell at a glance if she is getting too cold.
Thursday Hannah took Teddy to David City to have his stitches removed. Dorcas went, too, and they all visited Susan and baby Danica Jo. She has dark brown curly hair.
The nurses at the station recognized Hannah, Dorcas, and Teddy, and promptly went to calling Teddy “The Chin”. Teddy’s chin looks better than I expected it to. Although he will have a scar, I don’t think it will be very noticeable at all, thank goodness.
One day Bobby called to ask me if I thought he should choose Hannah’s engagement ring, or let her choose it herself. I recommended he let her pick it out, since it might wind up being one of those sorts of things one must look at (or even wear!) every day of one’s life, till the end of one’s life. So he went to pick out a few from which she could choose.
I asked, “Is that so she doesn’t choose one in the $15,000 range, with a stone the size of --” and Bobby hastily interrupted to say, “An egg.”
Later in the evening, he took Hannah with him to choose the one she wanted. She picked one of Black Hills gold with a diamond in the middle of a flower, with tiny leaves of different colored metal at the side.
I sorted the songs in our Christmas notebooks; there are about 50 notebooks, and we will have approximately 15 songs in our program. Practice went well Friday night, and the songs are sounding better and better.
The church bought me a remote mike, so that when I sing while also playing the piano, people can hear me better. This way, I am directly connected to the main amplifier system, instead of only my boom box, which was under the piano. I am going to have the very small children use the mike, too, when they say their Christmas poems, because they speak so softly it is difficult to hear them. Trouble is, the child that speaks the softest invariably forgets to hold it right up to her mouth; and the child that speaks loud enough without the mike consistently puts that mike straight up to his mouth, whereupon he blasts everyone abruptly from their doldrums. My adorable little nephew, Jason, held the microphone up directly in front of his nose, and then looked at it the entire time he said his poem, making him quite cross-eyed.
One day, Larry was working under a pickup, changing the oil…the oil pan got bumped, and oil ran onto the floor…shortly thereafter, Larry got the back of his hair in it, good and proper. He came home and headed for the shower posthaste, telling me, “I have to wash my hair before someone stakes a claim in it for the mineral rights.”
I have now started sewing Victoria’s dress for the Christmas dinner. It is maroon corduroy with a burgundy velvet peter pan collar, and it has a plaid corduroy vest of maroon, blue, green, gold, and black. The vest is done.
As I type, Lydia is playing her little lap organ very quietly over in the east corner of the living room; Hester is quietly playing the big organ in the other end…they are not bothering each other, because they are playing so softly. But I, sitting in the middle, have a different tune entering each ear. Although I have two ears, they do not operate in stereo, so I hear a cacophony, and not much else. I don’t complain, however; it’s a cozy sort of cacophony.
Victoria found an old crocheted orange and white ruffly toilet paper cover in the linen closet, and she proceeded to put it on her head and wear it around the house half the day. When the littles first saw her, they were absolutely convulsed at the sight. Silly little kids.
Saturday night after practice, I started baking a big turkey in the hopes of making a turkey pot pie…but it got later…and later…and later… and finally I decided to forget the pie, just get the turkey off the bones, and then pour several cans of Campbell’s celery soup on it, along with a few cans of vegetables. Anyway, at least I did make peach/raspberry/blueberry/marionberry cobbler. Keith and Esther, Bobby and Hannah came for dinner. The menu: turkey/vegetable cream soup, onion mushroom dressing, chef salad, biscuits, and the cob-bler.
After we all sit down around the table, Larry prays. Over on the counter sits the police scanner, which is typically silent--up until the beginning salutation of the prayer.
At that point, it launches into Full Investigative and Broadcast mode, with both dispatcher and policeman speaking in loud, alarmed voice. This never fails; it happens every single time. The littles (and sometimes the bigs, too) try hard to control their mirth.
It reminds me of the time my father and mother babysat for a parrot that belonged to some of their parishioners’, Bernie and Gay Harriman. They had taught their parrot to talk, but he didn’t do it often; no, he waited until prayer time. And then he talked. Did he talk. Did he ever talk.
He said, “Bernie is a bird-brained blabbermouth!” and he said, “Bernie kissed a bird-brained blabbermouth!”
Bernie and Gay had lived in a small village by the name of Northwest Depot, and they had taught their bird their address. They had also taught him several nursery rhymes. But he had a penchant for getting things a wee bit mixed up. So he said, “Hickory dickory dock! The mouse ran up the Northwest Depot!”
After the third time that happened, the parrot found himself covered with a pillowcase throughout the meal.
While we ate, Victoria sat on Larry’s lap, and he gave her a few bites. It wasn’t long before she announced, “I’m full.” Larry helped her down. She’d barely gotten around the corner of the table before she saw me handing Larry a fresh-out-of-the-oven biscuit. She whirled around and rushed back. “I need up on your lap!” she exclaimed--and then was all embarrassed when everyone laughed.
After dinner, Esther went into the living room to find Keith. There sat Teddy at the computer, tapping away at the keyboard. Esther walked right over to him, then leaned around and looked into his face--and discovered it was not Keith.
She gasped and stepped back, while several irreverent siblings snickered impolitely. Teddy immediately made a large placard reading ‘Keith’, which he then taped to Keith’s back. Keith promptly reciprocated by making a large placard reading ‘Teddy’, which he taped to Teddy’s back. And all the while, Esther was laughing and protesting, “You guys!”
Teddy put rear struts on the Dorcas’ car, and now she doesn’t feel quit so much like she’s riding a rocking horse as she goes along. Larry helped him finish, and then they checked the oil, bled the brakes, etc. Now, he only needs to fix the exterior--a front fender, and some hail dents.
Done with that, Larry and the boys went to see a customer who lives in a little village called Okinee, and on the way home they stopped to target shoot along the canal. Larry’s muzzle loader that he recently purchased backfired because the thingamajigger that is supposed to blither against the dealybobber so that the doohickey doesn’t blop the widget failed, and it turned into a flame-thrower--throwing flames and gunpowder back into Larry’s eye, which, fortunately, was shut. But he now sports a black and blue eye with little black gunpowder burns dotted all around it; and under the black dots, it’s beat red--where it isn’t black and blue, that is. An especially vibrant and flamboyant shiner. One that invariably makes people ask what he did to offend me. I suggested that I should make a couple of signs only slightly smaller than billboards, with a couple of straps at the top so he can wear them slung over his shoulders, stating, “My wife did NOT do it.”
After church tonight, Bobby and Hannah asked if June 25th would be okay for their wedding date. We agreed, and so it is settled. That date is also Lydia’s birthday. She is entirely elated. And so are the rest of us.
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