Family Circus

I wanted to get this one down before I forgot. Another Oliver incident that just confirms my opinion that small humans are the grossest entities on the planet.

Today Oliver spent an unusually long time sitting on the toilet, door open, singing away. When he was finished, he dismounted I should say, as he is rather small in relation to the toilet, and checked out the contents. With great enthusiasm he ran to the door of the bathroom, "Hey, guys. Check out the size of these logs!"
I thought someone was going to lose an eye or limb the way the children clawed past each other to be the first to the toilet. Oliver stood by, chest swelled, ready for compliments.
"Wow, those are huge."
"Look how many there are!"
Just as I came around the corner and hollered for everyone to get out and get back to work (they were practicing instruments, or had been rather), Charles leaned over the toilet and took a deep whiff.
"And the smell, Oliver is horrible."
Oliver could hardly take it he was so entirely gratified.
"Really, Charles. Do you think it is the smelliest ever?"
Charles reflected for a moment, " No. Not the smelliest."
Oliver was crestfallen, but then Charles went on, " But I think it is very close."
"Wow, it's almost the smelliest ever!" Oliver was jubilant. I shooed everyone out and flushed the toilet. I think Oliver was wanting to save the trophies for awhile.

Family Circus

Yesterday morning at breakfast Gabriel came down and stood in the middle of the kitchen wearing a soggy diaper and a shirt. I was rushing around, throwing a load in the dryer, turning off the kettle, spooning up oatmeal and in a general hurry. Charles observed his little brother and said, " You know mom, I don't think Gabriel has been dressed yet." I responded with sarcasm," Way to use those deductive thinking skills, Charles." Charles contemplated this for a moment and then turned to Jonathan seated on the stool next to him. " I think she's mocking me," he stated. Jonathan replied in his rather good British accent, " and right you are, my good man."

Daily Diary

This isn't exactly turning out to be daily yet. Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Once I figure out downloading pictures, I'll add them! (Even Jon couldn't quite get it to work, so that made me feel a little better). After dinner, Jonathan, Caroline and I fiddled. Unfortunately, Oliver insisted on being a part of the action, but he can only play a couple notes in random order with even more random rhythms. He can play LOUD, however. We convinced him to go in the music room and play with the door closed so we wouldn't disturb him, but this only lasted a little while. I thought we were pretty good fiddlers, as did my friend Kevin. Jon said it was more annoying than anything else because he was trying to talk and it was too loud.
With all this great weather we are having this week, I'd rather be camping! After lunch we (the kids excluding Vivian) went outside and jumped on the trampoline. It rather shocked the kids to see Big Mama, as they call me, jump. I let them know that once upon a time I was quite capable on the trampoline and could do front flips, back flips and other things. Should all of them not exist, I would probably still be able to do those things, so watch it! It is either really good excercise, or I'm seriously out of shape, but I was quite worn out after 15 minutes.
Violin and Viola lessons were canceled for today. The teacher is sick. All the kids were bummed. Jonathan wanted to switch over to his new violin and also work on the fiddle tunes. Charles has finally gotten his latest piece down and was eager to start the next song, and Oliver, who considers himself to be a virtuoso, just loves his lessons.
Back to the school room....