Mother's Day One
Sunday, May 13, 2007
It was Collette’s first Mother’s Day.
Mrs. Turtle was greeted after the worship service by a giant fuzzy bunny (at least Collette thought it was a bunny). It was her son who often dressed up as a mascot for the River City Rascals. Down he marched through the side aisle and handed her a large bouquet of red roses, thoughtful boy that he was.
For lunch it was off to the Silverspoon’s for fried chicken. Denae received a basket of spring flowers from OLeif, Collette, and Puck. And there was also a cheesecake with glazed strawberries.
At one point in the afternoon, Denae spoke about a home schooled family at church with five boys and one girl. The mother was Armenian, the father, Italian. Apparently they were so very disciplined with their schooling arrangements that they all wore uniforms, pressed by their father every Sunday night in preparation for the week. Denae said that they were all very clever, won spelling bees in the area and such. Still, Collette could not imagine going to school at home wearing a uniform.
Meanwhile, Theodore and Denae took turns holding Puck throughout the afternoon. And everyone laughed over his crazy faces.
Later in the afternoon it was off to Babler Park for more fried chicken, biscuits, Mom’s macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes and gravy with the family and the two grandmas. More goodies awaited for dessert including buttermilk brownies, a colorfully iced cake which read “Congratulations to All” (brought by Grandma Combs), and gooey butter cake.
While dinner was passed around, Carrie-Bri in her tye-dyed NASA t-shirt sat piled up with her mate and Salvador Dali book on the top of a footstool.
“Ticks.” She explained upon their arrival. “I’d rather face a hundred spiders than one tick.”
“That’s not going to help you, Carrie,” Dad laughed. “Ticks fall from the trees.”
But Carrie continued to sit high on the footstool.
Meanwhile, Rose and Linnea collected “pig noses” – nuts of some kind, and tried smashing them on the cement slab under the picnic table. Linnea had OLeif drive over some of them in his car until they popped.
And Joe zoomed off on his bike at upwards of 44.9 miles per hour.
Collette was given a necklace with interchangeable stones for the pendant (including Puck’s birthstone, a diamond) for a Mother’s Day gift from the family.
Unfortunately, shortly before they left the woods for the green, Grandma Combs became sick and made good company with a plastic bag for awhile until she felt somewhat relived an hour or so later. She had been temporarily plagued with some sort of hernia of the throat, which Grandma Snicketts had also experienced in the past. Very unpleasant.
On the green, Carrie played catch with Francis, Linnea, and a wiffleball. OLeif, Joe, and Francis took turns swinging Linnea around by her arms. (Francis let her go too soon several times into the grass, skinning up her knees a bit.) He also spent a good amount of time tearing up the grounds with Puck’s stroller (minus Puck inside it) transforming it into a rocket ship for most of the time. Joe also tried his hand at the stroller (with Puck inside) and gently pulled some wheelies around the parking lot. And OLeif was ornery with everyone, ending up with a bushel of dried grass thrown on his back by a gleeful Francis who ran off cackling in the other direction as soon as the deed was done.
“Oh your crazy aunts and uncles,” Mom told Puck, whom she had earlier rescued from the stroller before Francis took off with it.