Tomatos and bombfires

Tomatos is another blast from the past. The boys went through a period last summer when they were very nervous about tomatos. The kind that come out of the sky and take your house away. They are always preceded by a scary message on the TV screen that starts with "beep beep beep beep".

I was reminded of this on Thursday night when we were walking from our car to the fireworks in St. Joe. It was a bit of a trek and I had to carry William part of the way. While I carried him he chatted his little heart out. One of the things he said was that when we got home he wanted to have a "bombfire". That would be the fire you have outside in a firepit and roast marshmallows in.

He also saw a police car with lights flashing (I think directing traffic) and asked "Mommy, what is he doing?" before I could answer, he answered himself "I think he is going to the dollar store.".

In case you don't know Wil very well, be assured he was making a joke :)

Ana taught zac to bark like a dog--she plays stuffed doggies with him and they bark. He picked a trick up on his own, though, too; I was carrying him up the steps and the dogs, who were hot, were walking behind us. Soon I could hear this panting sound. Figured it was the dogs. It was, but not only. Zac also had his little tiny tongue out and was going "hll hlll hlll hlll hlll" with a doofy look on his face. He is developing quite the sense of humor!

The fireworks were great. Brian had to work and it was late for Zaccy for we left them at home and I took the older 4 and we met Joanie and James there. They were already in St. Joe for the live music and had a spot saved for us. We ended up listening to Bobby Vee sing Peggy Sue. I only vaguely know he is famous, but I figure it was a neat thing to have experienced. I found out today he is FROM St. Joe--that I did not know.

Ben LOVED the fireworks. He was entranced by them. It's something I would have thought he would like--something about him that has always seemed maybe even slightly autistic. (Not that you have to be autistic to love fireworks). Wils loved the fireworks too as did the others although Lij was trying very hard to be a crab. He gave up after awhile :) Ana and I had a nice talk about the historical significance about the 4th of July and fireworks ("...and the rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air.............."). She loves history.

We all 7 went to the parade on the 4th. When we were leaving the fireworks Thursday night Joanie suggested we leave one of our blankets in a spot along the parade route as that is something people do to save their seats. We did so and when we arrived on Friday morning there were red haired people on my blanket. Too bad I didn't have Leo there to take care of it! They were pleasant when we asked them to step off but they had 3 red haired kids who kept pushing Wils out of the way to get candy. Wils' sibs didn't take to that well at all and it was funny to see those little red haired girls get their comeuppance, Schurman style (basically, quietly and firmly....they just kind of took their spots and kept their ground and handed as much over to Wil as they could!).

Sorry if you have red hair. My mother prejudiced me.

The candy haul was so-so. I wish tootsie rolls were illegal for parade candy. Ana commented on the way home that "You know we are going to get crabby now, right?"

After the parade we had a friend of mine from school and her 5 year old son over for a bit. She's a very young single parent and he does show the effects but overall it was nice to have them and he enjoyed the lively company.

Later that day Ana removed her snorkel (a gift from Joanie and James!) from her mouth and out popped a tooth! It had been loose and we were taking bets on when it would fall out. Unfortunately it happened while she was in the water and the tooth has not been found. I suggested that in a thousand years some little green beings might find it fossilized on the beach, like we have found teeth (we have, we really have....not human, perhaps deer).

After we put nude bathing baby and dad to bed we sat in the yard and watched fireworks over the lake. We had a great time!

I am back at work now and we have a lovely patient. He is 92 years old and he is here for trying to beat the shit out of a nurse practitioner in a nursing home. And he really is lovely.....we are enjoying him very much. I suspect the nurse he attacked was treating him like a senile old coot which is is very much not. He is neat, clean, and oh so sharp. He seems to me like the kind of guy who always had his routines and his ways and it is just very hard for him to give them up. "The missus" is in a different nursing home and he talks to her on the phone every day. Though he does seem to have gender role ideas typical of his generation, he speaks very respectfully of "the missus". Many comments begin with "The missus figgers" or "That's what the missus says too". He is a unique veteran in that his service was in India during WWII--he said there were very few of them, only about 5000 GIs stationed there, and their mission was to send bombs over the Himalayas. He is on a personal mission to convince all of his fellow patients (guys in their 40s) that smoking cigarettes "don't hardly make no sense. if you're going to spend 4 bucks at least get a gallon of gas!"

We have a new email address....a new email person has been added to the family...we now have:

boodlefish@rocketmail.com

and that will get you to Mr. Ben and his very first email!

PS My 92 year old patient told me to tell Lij and Ben to use minnows to catch walleyes. i emailed lij and he is excited to try it. I figured if a guy has been fishing for 80 something years, he's gonna know what a walleye likes.