As the day progressed it slowly became evident what this was all about. Later on, Deirdre came into our room while I was in there, holding some sort of paper in her hands, and then stopped suddenly. “Drat!” she said with emphatic pronunciation, and exited the room. I thought either she didn’t like it that I had the radio on, with Christmas music playing–she doesn’t take much notice of it for the most part, but she hates a particular Christmas song so much it might’ve been connected with that–or she didn’t like it that I was in the room, which is the distinct impression I got. I left the room soon after. I noticed there was a pile of markers near the computer chair, as if she was stashing them there temporarily, to be used shortly.

Some time afterward, when I had come back upstairs, I noticed that the “No Boys or Grls Allowed” sign was on our door, this time with the “ulowd” corrected to “allowed”. I opened the door without really thinking, and came upon Deirdre crouched down working on some piece of paper, which she quickly tried to shield when I came in.

I went to do something on the computer in the hallway. Shortly thereafter Deirdre, on her way to the bathroom, came by and told me to “better not go rummaging around under my mattress pad”. Because, she explained, she was working on something that was “a secret from everyone.” I assured her that I certainly wouldn’t go rummaging around under her mattress pad. She gave a little sigh as if I didn’t understand, and said, “What I mean is, I’m hiding it there, and it’s a secret from everyone, so don’t go rummaging around.” I again told her I wouldn’t, but she attepted to explain a third time, telling me that it wasn’t a mattress pad on her bed–just one somewhere in the room, so don’t go rummaging around anywhere in the room.

Deirdre has been enjoying making cards for various occasions lately. She made at least 5 cards for two cousin’s birthdays recently, the number increased by the fact that due to weather conditions we didn’t go to the planned event at which they would have been given. So, instead of going and giving them, she just kept making more of them, especially for the girl cousin who is her age. She also made a “Merry Christmas” card for “Grandma and everybody” and another one for “Grandpa and everybody” which she gave to them at the Christmas party get-together at Grandma’s house. With this disclosure that it was a “secret to everyone!” (I suppose I just didn’t get it when I saw the sign) and the fact that it was Christmas tomorrow, I realized she must be making more Christmas signs or cards.

Later on in the day, when I was making supper, Dad commented to me “There’s a sign on your door that says ‘No Boys or Girls Allowed’!!”

“I know,” I said. “She’s working on something that’s ‘a secret for everyone’.”

Dad laughed. “I had to open up the door and peek and see what monster was behind it!”

“No, Dad,” I heard Deirdre’s voice piping up from the living room. “You’re a boy, so you can’t go in there.”

“I’m not a boy! I’m a dad!”

“You’re a boy, Dad, and it’s No boys or girls allowed.”

“You won’t be able to go to bed at night!”

“Yes I will be able to,” she calmly refuted.

“No, because it says no girls allowed, and you’re a girl!”

“I can go in.”

“Oh then if you get to go in and you’re a girl, I get to go in because I’m a boy!”

“Not one boy allowed. That’s that.”

“Not one girl allowed–that’s that!”

“You’re right Dad, you can go in–because I’m done working on it in there.”

“I think you’re a midget,” Dad declared, as if that explained everything.

“You better hurry up and go in there, Dad, because pretty soon it will say ‘No Dads allowed!” Deirdre called out.

“Ohh, I can’t read that word. I’d just write on it ‘No Deirdre’s allowed!’”

That is something how the coversation went–I can’t remember the entirety. Deirdre is used to and understands Dad being silly; and she always responds in a reproving manner which makes him laugh and doesn’t discourage him in the slightest. It is funny sometimes to hear her rejoinders to him.

Dad added his own list of “No”‘s to the sign, including ‘No Midgets’, ‘No Monsters’, and ‘No Ugly People–and That Means You!!!’ When I came up at bedtime, Dad’s words were scribbled out, all except for ‘No Monsters’. Beside that was written in Deirdre’s scrawl: “And No Dads. No Bad Dads. No Bad No Bad!”

The next day when we got up, Deirdre stopped by the door and started busily erasing on the sign. Thinking she was doing this because she no longer intended her words to be in effect, I asked her why she didn’t just take the sign down. “No, I’m just erasing this,” she said, and then I saw the scribbled-out patch over the words ‘No Girls’ which she was erasing. “I scribbled it out last night so you and Titi could go to bed.” Now she was un-scribbling it to make it in effect again.

The graffiti wars on the sign continued into this morning. Dad chuckled when he saw the sign and Deirdre’s addition to it. He bent over and wrote: “All handsome men allowed” and “Only _good_ dads allowed–that’s _me_!” Then he went downstairs and goaded Deirdre to see what he had written on it. She came up the stairs putting on airs of huffiness. I read it to her, (evincing laughter from Dad) in case she couldn’t read Dad’s handwriting, and she promptly began erasing it (evincing more laughter from Dad).

—
This reminds me of a different incident I wrote down in the “Gardening Journal” (which not only has gardening and weather information about each day, but since the recordings are written by me usually, often other random information about something that happened that day, continued into the next entry or written in microscopic print in the margins when I can’t fit it in the allotted space . . .) about a year ago, in January 2007–it isn’t directly related but this occurence brought it to my mind anyway.

Deirdre got it into her head that she wanted to make a “Surprise” for Dad. With my help, she wrote, “Dad, do you want a surprise? If you do, come up to the girls’ room” and taped it on the bookshelf in the living room.

“What is the surprise going to be?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.”

She was still thinking up that part. “Maybe I could buy him a camera,” she told Arlie. “I have tons of money.” (At this point in her life Deirdre was very high-reaching with her ideas of things she was going to buy Mom and Dad. She whispered to me one night how she wanted to buy Dad a new printer and a new light, and Mom a beautiful dress, among other things.) I gave her the idea of booby-trapping the door, with little stuffed animals on top. She was most agreeable to this plan (Deirdre and I are related, after all). We found some of her little stuffed animals that we could balance on top of the door. When Dad came home from grocery shopping, she tried to tell him about her surprise: “Dad, I have a surprise for you!” Dad was getting an orange and didn’t know what Deirdre was trying to tell him. “Am I looking at it?”

“Yuh-hea!” she said uncertainly.

“Deirdre, show him your piece of paper!” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah!” She dashed off to show him and came running back excitedly with Dad following (only a few miles behind But he came up gamely, with all the little kids–Owen on down–rushing after and cackling. Dad started to open the door and looked up as two of the stuffed animals, probably the little sheep, fell to the floor. “Yup, I sure am surprised!” he said. Deirdre was gleeful and laughing–all of the little kids were enjoying themselves. It probably would’ve turned into something more like today if he had been retired then, as he is now.

I was carving something when I saw a chicken flying up on top of the gate and flying down again to the other side. Certain chickens always get out of the fence, but this one was a different one that the ones that normally get out of the fence. At first I just ignored it and went inside for a while. But when it went on for a while, I decided to get the chicken back in the fence myself.

The chicken was walking around on the patio. I started walking towards the chicken, but it saw me coming and flew up onto the gate and then down to the other side. I walked away a little bit surprised. While I was walking away, the chicken flew up onto the gate again and flew down again! The same thing happened as before. This time, when I went away, the chicken flew up onto the gate, but I picked up a stick and ran toward it and tried to beat at it with the stick! (Owen starts laughing crazily.) I really just swung at it a little bit, I didn’t beat at it with the stick. The chicken got very surprised and flew back into the chicken yard.

The same thing happened again and again. It kept doing it faster and faster, like the chicken thought it was a game or something. At this time, the chicken was back in the fence and I saw it looking up to get ready to jump again. So I banged the gate with my stick to scare it away. Then I started walking away, but the minute I took a few steps the chicken was already back up onto the gate again! It was kind of funny how the chicken kept getting out non-stop. I RAN back as FAST as I could, but the chicken was too fast for me! It flew down off the fence! I was getting kind of excited at that point and I picked up a bigger stick and started whacking wildly! The chicken started squawking a little bit and flew up onto the fence. The chicken ran off into the chickenyard and didn’t look like it was going to come back again, so I went inside.

 It was the morning, but still dark, and I was going to check if anyone was awake. And my brothers,  Evan and Collin, are the latest sleepers. My brother Owen’s bunk bed was next to my top bunk bed, so there was a crack between them both, and I could look down onto Collin on the bottom bunk. I tried to look through the crack, but I was going the wrong direction.

 It looked like there was an alarm clock on my bed that showed red, but in real life it was not on my bed but on clothes-shelves and it showed the time in green. I thought I was going back to my pillow, but really I was going toward the edge of my bed. I kept on going and I fell off my bed. Then my older brother Rundy asked me if I was all right, and I said "Yes," but I was kind of scared, but I didn’t say that.

Then  I got back up onto my bed, and everything looked like how it was in real life, and I went back to my pillow, and laid down again.

—

One day, I got up and I ate breakfast, and it is my chore to dry breakfast dishes.  And we got a call inviting us to our aunt and uncle Nate and Sharon’s to go swimming. And I started to dry dishes.  But for a little while I thought none of the people in our family who could drive would want to drive, because it was such a long way. But then I found out that Lachlan and Rundy and everyone except Teman, Dad and Mom would go. Even my younger sister Deirdre.

I went into the bathroom to change into my swimming suit. Then I got sunblock on and put my clothes on over that. And I was excited about going to Nate and Sharon’s, but I thought it would be a long way. But when we were going, it didn’t seem like a long way. 

Once we were there and in the swimming pool, and I had my swimming suit on, I got in the life jacket and I got into a floating tubes and got into the shallow end. I felt kind of scared because I couldn’t feel the bottom of the shallow end, like I could last time. Then I pushed myself down, and I could feel it with my tiptoes.

Then I got out of the pool, and took off my floating tube, and went in again. I could walk on the bottom without getting on my tiptoes! And then I started walking around. Then I get bored of that and walked out and got in my floating tube. Then I went into the deep end with my floating tube, because I couldn’t swim. So I needed a floating tube. How I got onto the deep end, is Justin got me there, by dragging me by the floating tube. He went onto the end of the shallow end and dragged me out. And I kicked my feet and started moving.

Then I  got bored of that and went out of the pool and dried off and went into the bathroom and changed back into my clothes and started having Popsicles that Sharon gave us. Then I gave some to some of my brothers and sisters, but some of them didn’t want any.  

Then I decided I wanted more, so we kept having more and more, ’cause Sharon offered us more, till I decided I was done having them.  

Then I went down in their basement to play. Their basement is like a playroom. I couldn’t play the games I wanted to, but Sharon was going to put on some cartoons for me, but then I had to go. But I did see some good cartoons.

I went out, waiting for my brothers and sisters to come out, too. And while I was waiting,  I swung on the swing sets that they had out there. It was fun but I didn’t get to do it very long.  

A little while later, I got in the car, ’cause everyone else was in there, and we started off towards home. Overall, it was a fun visit.

Dictated by Caleb (age 6) 

Deirdre is the only one who still has all her baby teeth!

The first batch of baby chicks has arrived!!

They will quickly turn into meat chickens for the freezer, but right now they’re fluffly little balls that scurry around.

Dad and Teman are taking a week off!!

Since both of them are home all week, it’s easy to confuse one’s self into thinking it’s the weekend. Teman just finished two weeks of working over-time, so he’s particularly glad to get his time off.

Lachlan survived his presentation for his computer repair class!!

He wasn’t looking foward to it, and was very happy when it was over. He was surprised at how well it went over with the class. (His topic was PNG as the superior file format for photo hobbiests.)

Frost predicted for tonight!!

 I usually predict our last frost as coming in the first week of June, but this may well be our last frost of the winter. I do have cold weather plant already in the ground and growing (peas, lettuce, spinach), as well as a bunch more waiting to go in (lots of broccoli and leeks). Meanwhile, the light stand is all ready full to over flowing with tomatoes, basil, and other tender plants.

Rule number one: "Junk Is Cleaned Up When You Can No Longer see it." If it’s in a drawer, it’s cleaned up–as long as the drawer can close. It doesn’t matter if it was just tossed in there. Or if you have to dig a little to find it. If you can’t see it, it’s not there. (Thus, drawers prefered to shelves.)

Rule number two: "Put Junk With Like Junk," also known as "Organized Chaos" or "Misery Loves Company". Okay, so I don’t have a neat little peg board with all of my tools (glue gun, snap set, small wire cutters, embossing gun, other misc. and peculiar crafting tools) hanging each in their own place. But I know that if I am looking for a tool, I look in THIS drawer, but if I’m looking for a sewing trim (lace, ribbon, etc), I look in THAT drawer.

Rule number three: "Darwinian Organization."

[Unfinished . . .]