Then Owen tried them on, and went marching into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. He had his arm crossed, and looked like he was trying to make an “important” looking face, although it looked more like he was suppressing giggles. Owen makes faces all the time without even trying to. It obviously amused him greatly to be wearing glasses.

He looked in the mirror and (you guessed it) burst out laughing. No small giggles, either–all the built-up suspense came bursting out in Owen’s most extreme Giggles of Gusto.

He has different levels of laughter. There’s his Basic Giggles when he finds something amusing, which varies, but I will characterize as: “Tih-hih hih!” (“Hih” is meant to be pronounced like “him” without the “m”.) Then there’s his Prolonged Giggles when he finds something highly amusing: several rounds of “Tih-hih-hih!”‘s, with a continued tumbling string of giggles added on, increasing in pitch. The final level which he attains to, Hysterical Giggles, is when he is laughing so hard that all the little kids forget what they were laughing about originally and start laughing about how funny Owen looks/sounds instead. “DIH, HIH, HIH, HIH, HIH–“, he is giggling, with each breath of the laughter pumped out with such force it sounds like he’s going to get a hernia just laughing.

This laughter now started out on Hysterical and only went on from there. I myself did not find the sight of him with glasses on that hilarious, but once he started laughing so hard I just couldn’t keep from laughing along with him. Every time he saw his face in the mirror, it added fuel to his giggles. Since he kept looking in the mirror, it kept mounting up; the fuel got to overloading, and the Giggle Engine could hardly keep up! I had to keep him from falling in the toilet, as he nearly sat down into it in his uncontrollable mirth. He let himself collapse on the floor to finish his laughing. . .and laughing–and laughing–and laughing, without taking a breath. It reminded me very much of when Evan was his age and had similar laughing spells. But EvanÂ’s laughter was always high-pitched and boinged up and down and all over the place. His laughter was so extreme I almost asked him, “Are you all right?” before I remembered that he was just laughing.

Of course they had to have everyone else try on the glasses as well. Evan, earlier, had been making “roll-your-eyes” types of expressions at OwenÂ’s exaggerated mirth, but he did come to see me put on the glasses. There was a little bit of a delayed reaction when I put on the glasses. Then Owen exclaimed, “You look like Titi!, and I grinned one of my big goofy grins. That did it–they all doubled over in laughter, Evan included. The sight I made with glasses on struck his funny bone. For just a minute, when I looked so startlingly unusual

When Collin came by, Owen and Caleb ran out to him to get him to join in on the fun. Owen said breathlessly, “Collin, weÂ’ve all been trying on these glasses! See, look, here they are on Caleb!” They all tried them on again for Collin, who was mildly amused. Justin trying them on again seemed to evince the least reaction from everybody. It just didnÂ’t seem to change his face as much as it did for everyone else. He just looked like Justin with glasses on, and not much more. Then it was Collin’s turn. “LetÂ’s see how funny Collin will look!” one of the little kids said, and they all waited in breathless anticipation for him to put them on. They stopped him as he began to. “Try them on in bathroom, so you can see how you look!” they urged.

“Oh, alright.”

I didnÂ’t bother to follow (I was cooking supper), but I could tell how Collin rated on the Funny-ness Scale from the kitchen. I saw them all huddled around the mirror, and CollinÂ’s arms go up as he put them on. Then he started to laugh. I knew if Collin found it funny, the little kids would certainly also; and sure enough, there was an explosion of riotous laughter from the little kids. Collin put his face near to theirs, bugging out his eyes at them, making them burst into ever harder peals of laughter.

Later on, Owen and Caleb were making faces into the mirror. I wasn’t there to witness it, but Owen told me all about it. He came downstairs with a laughter-flushed face and said, “Hey Cadie, don’t you think this face is funny?” He pulled up the corners of his mouth and pushed down his eyebrows over his eyes. He seemed surprised when I didn’t fall over laughing. “Huh–it’s surprising you don’t think it’s funny! Me and Caleb were making faces like that upstairs, and we were LAUGHING and LAUGHING, and ‘crash!’ falling over, and rolling all around, ‘cause we thought it was so funny!”

I asked Justin and Owen, “How many kinds of fruit can you think of that are yellow?” They both started talking at once: “Peaches! Yellow apples!” Owen said. “Bananas–yellow apples!” Justin said. “I bet I know of one you don’t,” I said. “I bet you’ll never guess!” At first they were too busy naming off theirs to pay attention, but then they got interested. “It’s a certain type of one kind of fruit,” I said.

They kept guessing the same one over and over again when none of the new ones were right. Finally, after the suspense had built up, I asked, “Want to know what it is?” They agreed, so I disclosed the great secret: “Yellow plums!”

Owen let out a gasp. “Yellow plums?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah, don’t you remember in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, it said that there were tons of different kinds of plums that Laura picked, purple ones and red ones and yellow ones?” I asked, referring to “On the Banks of Plum Creek”, which I had read to them. “Ohhh yeahÂ…!” Owen and Justin both said.

That started up our game. Next I did the color orange. Justin guessed the orange right away quite naturally, but I wouldn’t do something that obvious. They went through several other guesses, when Owen had a good idea. “Is it a—what is it—yeah—paw-paw?” he asked. I almost said yes, but I switched halfway through and said “—Not a paw-paw, no.” He was onto me; he immediately asked, “Is it a papaya?”

“Yes,” I said, and Mom, Owen, and I all burst out laughing. “You gave it away, Cadie!” Mom said, who had come in to make supper. “When he said paw-paw, I thought he said papaya at first!” I said, making Owen giggle harder.

For a red fruit I just thought of a cherry; I thought it might take them a while to guess it because it’s been ages since we had cherries. “Apple!” Justin said. “Is it, you know, that seedy thing?” Owen asked; he was trying to describe a pomegranate. They both wound up guessing apple several time over, as well; the “Red Apple” is such a common and so often stereoptyped fruit that it kept coming into their heads every time they thought of red. Probably springing from the thought of an apple, Owen asked if it had a long stem coming out of it. Even when I said it did, he didn’t get it. But Rundy gave it away when he walked by and said, “It’s a cherry, of course.”

“Yes, but they didn’t know that!” I said. I did a tomato next, thinking to get them over that one, seeing as a tomato actually is a fruit—technically. But Justin knew that; no more tricky Cadie for them. Justin said that he was thinking of something white, before they had even guessed mine. “White?” we asked in surprise. There was only one thing I could think of that was white right off the bat, seeing as most things have color to them. I said, “Well, do you mean a cauliflower…? Although that’s not really a fruit. ”

“Nope, NOT cauliflower!” Justin refuted.

“Do you mean white on the inside? Some things are white on the inside, like even apples.” But he kept repeating, “It’s white on the outside.” Owen and I couldn’t guess it, but Mom did; the answer was cantaloupe.

“I know one—it’s black!” Owen cried jubilantly. Mom made a face of surprise. We all guessed lots of ones that weren’t really black, because we figured it was just a dark color that he counted as black. It turned out it was a prune, which do look pretty black, I suppose.
But the one that gave us the most trouble guessing was another of Owen’s, which he said was “Something white and soft and fluffy.” That puzzled us quite a bit at first, partly because we thought he was talking about a fruit at first. And what fruit in the world was white and soft and fluffy? Except for a banana, that is, which we did guess once we thought of it. But then he clarified that it was not a fruit. “Something white and soft and fluffy” sounded queer, like he was talking about white cotton candy or something. But I knew it couldn’t be that, especially since he probably didn’t even know what cotton candy was. I tried to think of what Owen would count as “fluffy”.

“Popcorn?” I guessed. No, it wasn’t popcorn. White…fluffy…soft…Whipped cream, that’s what he must be talking about! But no, it wasn’t that either. “Ice cream?” we guessed. There seemed to be so few things that met all the qualifications, every time a thought popped into my head that did I was sure it must be that. But then Justin guessed, “Flour?”

“Yes!” Owen said. “’Cause I saw Mom scooping that stuff!” (Mom was actually scooping cornmeal for cornbread, but that didn’t make a difference.)

Then we went on to playing I Spy. I looked long and hard for something that would be considered a “nothing” by them, that they would overlook. They would immediately, I knew, guess the things in first sight; like the clock and things on the table. It couldn’t be something with even just a little of my color on the table, because, with the table being so close, they would carefully scrutinize it. It had to be someplace where their eyes didn’t normally wander to—yet not so obscure that it would be almost impossible for them to guess it.

Finally, I spotted a tiny little dandelion laying on the floor, beyond MomÂ’s feet. Perfect! So I said, “I spy something yellow.” Just like I thought, they started out by guessing the clock . . . then everything else that caught their eye–measuring cups, plastic wrap container, or whatever. Then they systematically turned to scanning the walls and the things in/on the cabinets for anything yellow. When none of those things were right, they tried to think of something more sneaky or clever. “MomÂ’s cornbread?” Justin guessed. I laughed and said, “No, not the cornbread.” Finally, when they got desperate, they got down to specks of yellow. Perhaps a little speck of yellow on a medicine bottle? Or a tiny little yellow lid on some container? “It must be in this room,” Justin kept saying, as if he couldnÂ’t believe it really was. “Look up and down; itÂ’s something hard to spy,” I said. I gave them a hint by saying, “Mom just walked past it!” Now they were really interested. If Mom just walked past it, they must be able to guess it. I think Mom laughed when they finally figured out what it was.

When Owen was the one who was “Spying” something we had to guess, he kept saying, “Nope! Nope! Nope!” with his arms crossed confidently at everything we said. “Is it such-and such?” we’d guess.

“Nope!”

“Is it such-and-such, over there?”

“Nope! Nope! Nope-Nope-Nope!” He was hardly even listening to what we were guessing, as if he was sure we would never possibly guess it. After a while of this, Justin asked, “Is it even in this room?”

“Nope!” Owen the Nope-Machine said again, and then he burst out laughing. He thought it was most hilarious, because, of course, heÂ’d only said “Nope” because he was so used to saying it. We were pretty sure thatÂ’s why he was laughing, but you never knew with Owen. He mightÂ’ve been saying “Nope!” so cockily like that because we were guessing in the totally wrong room. Once we had it re-affirmed, though, that it was in the room–like it was supposed to be–we could go back to our string of guesses. He went back to his string of “Nope”s until suddenly it changed to “Yup!” We had gone through so many guesses and nopes, it was hard to tell which guess went to that one “Yup.”

“Yup what?” I asked.

“Yup, it was the phone!”

We all took turns, or tried to. Owen kept interjecting, “Oh, I have one!” as if he just thought of the best one in the world, and wouldn’t wait to say it. “No, Owen, it’s my turn!” Justin would say.

Another one I did was the blue part in the rainbow of a suncatcher. The whole thing was dim, so it didn’t stand out much. They guessed blue objects until they were sure they had guessed every single one in the kitchen. They seemed determined to guess every single one, in fact, going to the point where they started yanking open drawers, pulling out things and asking “Is it this little bit of blue?” It seemed like they’d decided I must be able to see through cabinets. Finally they were at their wit’s end, and gave up. But when I pointed it out to them, Owen cried out, “Oh, I was going to guess that, I just didn’t yet!”

“You should’ve guessed it sooner! You said you gave up!” I scolded, partly exasperated, mostly amused. We pretended to punch each other playfully. I think that turned into me saying, “Hey, you buster!” and tickling him like crazy. Sometimes Owen acts in such a way, pretending to be “cocky”, which if you don’t get mad you can make him burst out laughing instead.

There is only so long you can play I Spy without it getting old, so after that we quit.
]]> http://purdyville.com/blog/2004/10/16/a-goofing-off-afternoon/feed/ 0 http://purdyville.com/blog/2003/10/15/the-bread-freak/ http://purdyville.com/blog/2003/10/15/the-bread-freak/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:07:10 +0000 titi http://purdyville.com/2003/10/15/the-bread-freak/ As anyone who spends practically any time around Rundy knows, Rundy is a total bread freak. He loves bread. He eats it all the time. He was the one who got us started on making our own bread.

Yesterday, one of my loaves of bread was sticking the pan, and I was having a real hard time getting it out. It finally got to the point I was contemplating cutting the loaf in half in the pan, and then prying it out. Rundy was horrified! So he came over to help get it out–he put on the hot mitts, flipped the pan upside down, and gave it several hard whacks. The loaf did finally come out.

“There, see? I got it out with minimal damage.”

I looked at the pan, which now looked like someone had just gotten done jumping up and down on it–it was quite dented and rathered caved inward on the bottom.

“You mean the bread, right, not the pan?”

“Yeah! Of course!”

Okay, so it was a hot aluminum pan. Lachlan bent it back into shape with his bare hands. But still, you can see where his priorities lie!