Thanksgiving Preparations
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
OLeif was feeding Puck breakfast. There was a new item on the menu that morning: apple banana strawberry, mixed with the usual cereal. OLeif was apparently not getting the desired results from Puck’s feed.
“Does he ever sneeze on you too?” He asked. “He only sneezes if his mouth is full of food.”
Puck was already plastered in his breakfast, studying the side bar of his painted highchair. He was pleased with himself for the mess, it was obvious.
While Collette exercised in the basement, she could hear the boys upstairs. OLeif was singing old brass jazz through some sort of combination of nasal tones and explaining the pages of his new website to the Puck.
“Bah bah bah bah!” Puck responded, banging his palms on his highchair.
When Collette returned, Puck was busy rolling around on his mat in his overalls. He whined loudly from under the rocking chair where he somehow thought he would be able to crawl over the legs with ease.
Puck was soon back at the house, looking for more trouble. He scooted around his Aunt Rose who was busy wrapped up in a blanket on the floor with a bag of chips watching “The Road to Utopia”.
“Aw,” Rose pulled a broken chip out of the bag, “Carrie sat on the bag.”
“I gave you plenty of warning,” Carrie told her.
“I’m going to give you plenty warning too, Rose,” said Mom, walking into the living room. “Get your room cleaned for tomorrow.”
Rose groaned. Her life was an endless string of ‘clean your room’ and ‘put that away’.
Frances was in the kitchen with his candy cane-shaped potato gun thrown over his shoulder. Linnea was playing with Amelia down the road. Collette had driven her over in the steady rain. It was a wonderful day. Desolately wonderful.
Later that afternoon, Linnea returned in time for lunch. Not long after Mom went down for her afternoon nap, Linnea sneaked outside with a Dixie cup. She came back shortly later with the cup full of fresh mud. Seeing as Mom had just finished cleaning the house for Thanksgiving, Collette felt compelled to caution her.
“Why are you bringing mud inside, Linnea?”
Linnea grinned. “Because I like mud.”
Later, Collette passed the hall bathroom here she saw Linnea busy washing the mud off her miniature dolls in the sink.
Carrie-Bri was in the kitchen sneaking slices of the pumpkin roll for Thanksgiving before Mom caught her in the act. Then she pulled up an episode of “Top Gear” on the computer which involved shooting a three-wheeled car via space shuttle from a military base in England into the atmosphere.
Around 4:00, Joe and Frances began experiments with Frances’ newly designed potato gun. Out once again came the rubber ducks.
BOOM!
The ducks went spinning into the treetops.