A Low-Tide Day

We all slept late this morning. Scott had taken Jane to a Padres game last night, which pushed bedtime back for everyone, and I don’t think I opened my eyes before 7:30. Nice.

The baby was sorely in need of a bath. She hates baths. I wound up with three other kids in the bathroom trying to coax a smile out of our screaming princess; she is such a jolly baby that it tears everyone up to see her in distress. But she survived, and it turns out her feet are actually a sort of pink color. Who knew?

Jane kept an eye on the two little ones while I grabbed a shower for myself (bless you, Jane). When I got out, I found Rose tucked into my bed, reading Jane of Lantern Hill—a family favorite, and the book from which Jane gets her blog alias. She looked so comfy I would have liked to climb right in beside her and possibly steal the book. The part where Jane encounters the circus lion? It makes me laugh out loud, every single time.

But the baby summoned me to the living room, where I found Jane sprawled out with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Some of her best friends have just completed a production of this play, and Jane wants to learn some bits by heart so as to join in the quoting fun the next time she sees them. We divvied up the parts and read a few scenes. Wonderboy perched between us, our own "little tricksy Puck," and amused us by echoing random bits of dialogue.

Titania: Full often hath she gossip’d by my side,
            
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands—

Puck: YELLOW!

Titania: Marking the embarked traders on the flood—

Puck: YELLOW!

My apologies, Mr. Shakespeare.

During all this, Beanie was The Flash up and down the hall about eighty times. She is very fast.

Then Rose finished her book and turned The Flash into a penguin for reasons unknown to me. Penguins romped in the girls’ room until lunchtime. The baby ate toast crumbs off the floor, and possibly an ant.

Jane worked on the songs she is preparing for her piano guild audition. Is it called an audition? Testing? I don’t know the terminology. I do know that there is a Highland Jig kicking its heels all around my brain, over and over and over.

All the Midsummer Night’s Dream enthusiasm (thank you, Alice!) spilled into a debate over which of Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes books has that play in it. Jane insisted it was Ballet Shoes, and she was right. Naturally this sent the day’s make-believe careening in a new direction, and I believe that Posy and Petrova Fossil are currently practicing their fairy roles in the room that was so recently Antarctica, while  the oldest Fossil girl, Pauline, is putting the finishing touches on a purple crocheted slipper. Puck is supervising. He thinks she should add some YELLOW!