Six Days
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Collette’s 22nd birthday – somehow she felt old.
Collette wished that people still celebrated the twelve days of Christmas as they did back in the old days, and kept Christmas going until the sixth of January. It made the climax of Christmas Day a lingering thing, which also meant that folks would keep their Christmas lights on longer, a sure way to keep the Christmas season alive.
At the house that morning, Collette arrived to find that Mom and Carrie-Bri had taken Linnea to the pediatrician to check into her sore ear. After learning that she did, indeed, have a whopping ear infection, the diagnosis was also clear:
“Yes, that’s definitely strep throat.”
Carrie also tested positive, although everyone seemed to already be healing except for Linnea’s ear. Just to be safe, the doctor put nearly all of them on medicine to be sure that all was cleared. Collette only hoped that she had still bypassed the illness and remained at the house during the morning leading up until her lunch with the office staff.
And apparently, the night before – Carrie had been forcing Linnea to eat her broccoli (which was not an easy task). Finally, Linnea took a bite, and Carrie pulled back the rest of the piece, covered in dill dip and blood. It turned out that Linnea had lost a tooth in the bite, and not only had she lost a tooth, but she had literally lost it. Carrie hunted through the remaining piece of broccoli to no avail and was afraid that Linnea must have swallowed it during the agony of having to eat the broccoli in the first place. It did, however, turn up later on the floor. Linnea was having quite a time of it that week.
For the last bit of that Tuesday morning, Frances played with Rose’s last ceramics creation: an operating water fountain. Frances added red food coloring to the water and watched it cascade down the fall. A miniature battleship followed, then soap suds. He then occupied his time with making large soap bubbles in a shortbread tin on the kitchen counter. Mom was not pleased to return with the packages of medicine to find that Frances had forgotten to bring in the trashcans and empty the dishwasher with other chores. And Rose was more than not pleased to find that her new fountain was gushing red soap suds.
OLeif called later in the day to inform Collette that they had just received a box of thirty oranges in the mail, a generous Christmas present from the Hatchs. Each orange was individually wrapped in tissue paper.
Joe then dropped off Collette at the church office before noon, where all the staff (minus Judah) soon piled into the cars to head to Travena’s for Greek and Italian food to celebrate Isabella’s and Collette’s birthdays. Before leaving, however, there were gifts: Christmas seasoned oyster crackers in little painted tin buckets from Isabella for everyone and a lotion set from the Dead Sea for Collette, from Ivy. There were also birthday cards at the restaurant, after Collette had ordered a very salty olive, Feta, and spinach Greek pizza with plenty of ice water.
Afterwards, Joe picked her up again and she returned in time to accompany Mom and Rose for the first time down to UMSL for Rose’s last CLEP exam of the year. Rose returned triumphant, and found herself nine credits into her sophomore year in college. Collette was pleased with her. It wasn’t easy work, and Rose was rising to the challenge of it all.
On the way home, Mom ran into the grocery store for chicken salad, ham salad, croissants, fried potatoes, sparkling grape juices, and little frosted cupcakes for Collette’s birthday dinner for the family while Linnea rested on the couch. OLeif had just joined them from work. They had all opted to refrain from attending the second voice recital that night, should there still be germs about. Collete hoped that a certain tickle in her throat was not a sign of impending strep for herself, and prayed that the next morning would not reveal a sore throat.
There were also gifts from the family: a book-recording journal and fine-point pen, a silver bookmark, a rubber stamp and ink pad, and an aluminum (looking) old-fashioned telephone, which Collette had seen several months ago in the store and liked.
Then after watching part of Little Women with the family over hot chocolate, for those who wanted some (including Linnea, who seemed to be mending), it was time to call it a night.
It had been a good birthday.