57 : Happy 3rd!
Yali’s 3rd birthday opened with a flavor that continued throughout the day. Every day, really. The flavor of “LOUD!”.
Early that morning Puck burst into the hallway, “I HATE MOO COWS! PEACE! PUCK, OUT!”
Then he flew into my room with both hands signing “V” for victory and landed on the bed face first.
I don’t think Yali really had any idea that it was his birthday, or what a birthday actually was. Probably a good thing, considering the celebration wouldn’t officially take place for another six days.
At nine o’clock, I sat in a meeting at the local school district’s early childhood development center, getting the scoop on Yali’s upcoming educational transition. Meanwhile, the two boys threw rubber animals all over a corner of the conference room.
“IS THIS ELEPHANT EVIL?” Puck asked one of the ladies before we started, holding up a rubber elephant with red eyes.
“Hm,” she laughed. “I guess he really does look like an evil elephant.”
Over an hour later, we were back in the grocery store. More boxes of raspberries for the boys to inhale later in the day. Puck pushed the cart while Yali screeched happy things as he cruised the aisles.
Back home, Puck had taken the time to weigh himself.
“I put on a lot of weight, Mom,” he told me. “Since last night.”
“Oh, yeah? How did you do that?”
“Well. I did eat a sandwich for an adult last night, and I was still hungry afterwards. Yup. That sandwich weighed a lot. I weigh 75 pounds.”
It was the mid-afternoon. Another speech therapy hour had come and gone. And I brought out the paint. I let the boys watch some Netflix in the basement while I got started on the living room. Only interrupted about every five minutes with some new disaster.
“MOM! YALI JUST STUCK HIS HANDS IN THE LITTER BOX!”
Dinner time. A long day wrapped up with Pizza Hut for the young brown man at the table, looking very important over a little chocolate lava cake.
“CHOCK-ET!” he bellowed, delighted with his dessert.
Once the new three year-old hit the feathers, good and tired after a long day of work, Oxbear and I got back to the paint. Puck laughed hysterically over cartoons in the basement. Lightning flickered, lamp-like, in the west.