Charlyn’s Web

“The dog has mopped it up so quit wallowing on the floor.”

After the evening performance of the Living Last Supper at Church a week ago the kids were playing outside. Apparently a tree leaped in front of the running Boy and then wouldn’t move. Nasty tree!

Lots of scrapes on the Boy but he seems to be fine. His face gets lots of attention. We tell people that they should see the tree!

Last Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. our little church put on a production depicting the Da Vinci painting, The Last Supper, and the last days of Jesus life. It took pretty much the whole church working together to pull it all off. There was a choir, the twelve Apostles, Jesus, a Narrator, towns people, Roman soldiers and an angel. This is the second year we have done this so we knew what we were getting into this time. Last time it seemed to keep growing on us! It’s a very moving production.

Col. Panic was the narrator and sang a song.

Three of the cutest towns people.

The angel at the empty tomb.

He has risen!

You will need to click to enlarge the thumbnail to see that the Farmer is wearing her brother’s boots. We found the hats at a thrift store and they’ve been wearing them ever since.

“Well, gee, Miss Pixie, think it might rain?”

Miss Pixie

Farmer Sunshine holding Baby Jonathan.

We ate at McDonald’s after church today because we had another thing going on in town later in the afternoon. We had enough time after we ate for the kids to play a little bit. It’s been awhile since they have been able to play there.

When we were driving off, Pixie announced that she had a new boyfriend.

Oh?

“One of the boys that was at the play area.”

I see, what was his name?

“I don’t remember, he told me once but that was all.”

Uh huh. Well, you’ll have to tell the boy you are going to marry.

She looks at me funny, like she doesn’t really understand why she would have to do this.

“No.”

We may have had a breakdown in communication there- I was thinking of the serious meaning of “boyfriend” and she may have been thinking that he was a boy and is now a friend. But this hadn’t clicked with me yet so I asked Aren’t you going to marry the boy you’ve been saying you were going to marry?

She sighs, “I don’t know who I am going to marry.”

Into this introspective moment Miss Sunshines pops in with:

“I don’t know WHAT I’m going to marry!”

“Has R borned a baby?” asked Sunshine about a month ago.

Umm, no.

“When will she borned a baby?” she persisted.

Honey, as far as I know, there is no baby .

“But she got married!”

Yes, and that was a good first step but, you know, that it takes a long time to make a baby.

“Yes, I know!!!” Miss Know-It-All stated. She is the child that is always saying “I know!” loudly when a person tries to explain something that she obviously doesn’t understand. I’m also not to sure about her listening skills.

I thought the matter was laid to rest. I told R’s mother about it and we got a good chuckle out of it.

R came over for dinner the other day. Before they got here Miss Sunshine asked again-

“When will R borned her baby?”

I told you there is no baby!

“Yes, I know it takes a long time- but when?”

Sigh.

I rolled my eyes as we went round and round again.

Not believing her Mother, who obviously knows nothing about babies, she approached R after dinner.

“When are you borning a baby?”

Luckily, R has a sense of humor and again explained that there is no baby and probably will not be one for awhile. I hope this puts that idea to rest, I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t worry about the kid’s social skills- they not only get to learn who to treat each other, the most annoying siblings on earth, with kindness and dignity on a daily basis but they interact with children of all different ages several times a week.

It’s the Homeschooling Mother that often has the problem. We are at home, struggling to teach the kids, keep up with laundry, keep the house decent and have conversations about made up people all day. There are times I get quite twitchy wondering if I will totally lose adult conversation skills.

We’ve had a busy time the last few weeks. The Col. was home from work over Christmas, then we went to my parent’s over New Years and I visited with family. Then we came home and I collapsed for a day. Tuesday brought our usual homeschool sports and recreation day so I got to talk to other Mothers there. (and you thought those activities were for the kids!) Wednesday is the day when my Mom calls. I joke that I spend hours “listening” to her because she does most of the talking. That often seems to happen but the phone calls are enjoyable and I am thankful for them. So after about an hour and a half I got off with her, about an hour later my good friend, who I haven’t actually talked to for quite awhile (we email and instant message often), called. We spent the next few hours catching up. During that call the one phone handset died so I picked up the one in the bedroom.

Shortly after I got off with her I thought I should call a lady from church to ask her something before I forgot. Talked to her for a bit. I then went out to the shop and heard the phone ringing. I grabbed the handset out there and talked to another friend for one of our shorter conversations of about an hour. I was thankful that I had a fully charged handset to use.

After that marathon day, I spent another hour on the phone to another friend on Thursday, had company on Friday night, had coffee with a friend on Saturday afternoon, a date with my husband Saturday evening and church on Sunday.

Whew! I think I’ve had enough. I thought about taking Monday off again- but I needed to get school going so decided against it. I stayed off the phone though.

The door knobs in our house have never been stellar and now they are falling by the wayside quickly. They get to the point where they refuse to turn and operate anymore. Stubborn things.

The knob to the Girl’s room was getting worse and worse. It took quite a bit of effort if the door was shut to get it open again. One morning, the door was shut and it took me trying quite awhile before Pixie got it open from the inside. I told them to not shut it completely until their father could look at it.

That advice was followed for an hour or two and then the door was shut. Pixie on the inside of the room. Sunshine decided she wanted in and couldn’t get the knob to turn. I gave it a try, and tried again, and again. I had Pixie try from the inside. No luck, still stuck.

I tried getting a credit card like item to slide in and work the latch back but couldn’t get it in there. The screws for the knob were on the inside as were the door hinges. The door opens in. I called The Col. to get advice as to what to do. He was stumped too. The window is hard to open from the outside and too heavy for Pixie to open from the inside. He asked if she was upset.

No, she was drawing on her bed so no need to hurry.

He finally decided to try slipping a screwdriver under the door to her and coaching her on how to get the screws out. He said to remember that she was opposite of me when telling her which way to turn the screws. He knows my failings.

I slipped the screwdriver under the door to her and chanted to myself “lefty loosey, righty tighty” then remembered to reverse that and told her to turn the screw towards the living room wall. She decided that the screwdriver was too big.

I told her, mainly in jest, not to worry, that we would slip food under the door to her. She seemed pleased with that prospect.

I got another screwdriver and slipped it under to her and repeated my instructions.

She was able to get the screws out. Whew!

Ok so the knob was apart. Now what? I tried pushing on various parts of the mechinisim that was still there. Nothing did anything. So I called The Col back. What do I push on? He couldn’t really tell me but did suggest that I take the knob on my side, that luckily had more of the workings on it, and use it to see how the door worked. I put it in, turned it a few times while I watched it and the latch snapped back!

As I let Pixie out she grumped that she was unhappy as she wanted to get her food pushed under the door to her. Can’t please some people.

Pace, pace, pace.

Whine.

Pace, pace, pace.

I roused a bit. There was someone, something walking in the bedroom. Not one of the kids. Ah, The Dog.

We have started letting The Dog out of the confines of the utility room. He is older and less apt to chew on things plus the kids aren’t leaving things out so much. He has to be watched a little bit as he will pick up the stray stuffed animal but overall he’s handled his new freedom well. But this night, well morning- it was 2 AM after all, he was pacing by my bed. The whine moved me to action and I pulled myself out and followed him to the door. I let him out, did a thing or two as I waited for him to come back to the porch. I let him in and returned to my warm bed.

Pace, pace, pace.

“Hi Mom!” he seemed to say. “Since you are awake and all.”

That’s when he went back outside until The Col. got up about 5 and I informed him HIS dog was outside.

The gate went back up for a bit and he was confined to his room. But we have loosened up again.

Last Saturday I was snoozing in bed, trying to get some more dozing in before I was rousted out of bed by my hungry crew when I felt someone staring at me. It crept into my tired brain that there was someone by my bed. I expected to open my eye to see the brown eyes of The Otter staring at me. I expected her to announce, as soon as she saw any eye white, to declare her normal morning greeting.

“I’m hungry!”

I pried my eyes open to indeed peer into a set of brown eyes but they didn’t belong to an Otter but to a Dog. He was quite happy to see me move and by the licking of his mouth I assumed he was also announcing that he was hungry. I knew, this time though, that The Dog’s Father was awake and let him get up to tend to his dog.

And lastly, I will leave you with this photo. Apparently, Little Miss Sunshine decided The Dog needed some reading material.

It’s a dance- to be done with children.

First the parent decides to take the children to an event that would broaden their little minds, expose them to culture and fill their souls.

Then the children loudly proclaim that it will be BOOOORRRRING! And that they don’t “appreciate” that kind of thing.

Lastly, the parent drags children to event, leaving grooves in the cement steps as they dig in their little fingers and scream in agony.

It’s real fun, you need to try it sometime. I just did.

Col. Panic was singing with the local symphony and choir for their Christmas concert. We thought it would be fun, entertaining, interesting and good for the kids to go to the Dress Rehearsal and see their Papa in action. At least we weren’t dumb enough to take them to the real deal thing. I figured they could be a tad restless and we could whisper some if there wasn’t a crowded auditorium. We packed coloring books etc. to help stave off the boredom and headed into town as they moaned and groaned about their ordeal.

Just the trip getting there was interesting. It seems that I don’t know how to drive.

“Do you know how to dim the lights in this thing?”

“Are you going to hit those bumps going full blast?”

I realized the brights were on (apparently I didn’t know how to dim them “in this thing”)and was mentally apologizing to the truck in front of me as I dimmed them when a voice pops up with:

“Why are you turning off the lights?!?”

We some how made it there and managed to sit through Vivaldi’s Gloria. To be honest the kids did very well. The Girls sat on my lap, one at a time. We talked a bit about what was going on and the girls colored. They insisted that it was awful. I enjoyed it.

Then for the ride home they all piled in with Papa and I somehow managed to drive myself home without all that help.

Wonders never cease.