Mr. Trouble on Feet: Around for a Decade

Mr. Trouble on Feet had been eagerly anticipating his tenth birthday for months. He was very excited about double digits. For breakfast in the bathtub, he chose muffins, and since we didn’t have a lot of ingredient options at that particular time, it was blueberry muffins! All the kids in the house piled in the bathtub. The Banana was gone that morning, but Cousin Nathaniel was visiting for Camp Aunt Rachel.

Dr. Peds loves blueberry muffins, so he was on hand to eat the extras and sneakily turn on the cold water faucet just a little bit so it dribbled on a certain sibling.

At least one bathtub breakfast participant left in a fury, and then two more left just because things were a little . . . damp. That left the birthday boy having a solo breakfast in the bathtub.

Before Dr. Peds left for work and I began teaching students Mr. TOF opened presents. He spent a great deal of the day using his baseball rebounder and constructing marble runs with his cousin. Mr. TOF has been on a marble run building spree for the last few months, so he was excited about getting a marble run set for his birthday, and he has built numerous complicated runs every day.

For lunch we picked up Vitta Pizza. I baked a white cake with lemon frosting topped with strawberries. The lemon frosting was an experiment, and it turned out to be a great success. For supper Mr. TOF chose baked pasta. As soon as we were done eating, we jumped in the car and headed to the sandy beach. The day had been drizzly, full of little ran showers, but the evening cleared up for a perfect beach trip. Mr. TOF decided to swim horizontally to the shore, his longest swim yet, so long that he was pretty sore the next day.

When we got home it was dark, the perfect time for before-bed cake and ice cream, accompanied by the family tradition of singing as crazily and loudly as possible.

Mr. Trouble on Feet relished a day with no chores or practicing.