My Big Guy
Puck opened his 8th birthday morning with a light session of reading on the couch with a stack of “Calvin & Hobbes”. A typical way to begin any normal Saturday morning. This was only after he threw himself onto our bed and wrapped up warm in the blankets to represent a Puck sandwich.
“Okay, son, ready for birthday waffles?”
It’s a Silverspoon family tradition.
Puck nodded from behind a pile of treehouse Legos. “I think I’m ready to get hungry.”
A mountain of waffles, whipped cream, and strawberries greeted him. “It tastes absolutely good,” he confirmed.
When we arrived at the Silverspoon house in the early afternoon, there were more gifts from Theodore, Gloria, and the boys. Glove and baseballs, science in a bottle, kickball, and an entire roll of tin foil, which Puck rolled up into a large ball in the backyard.
There was pizza inside. Eight fat candles in bright colors, stuck in a pizza. Sometimes substituting ice cream cones or pizzas for birthday cake is a perfectly acceptable option for an eight year-old boy.
As the afternoon progressed, Puck’s hours were spent in crafting mines and kicking balls around the yard. A thin film of yellow pollen dusting the whole world over, eliciting the occasional sneeze or cough. Like the remains of a small golden dust storm.
On the drive home, Puck was rewarded his dessert of choice: four flavors of slushy mixed into one. He was charged up with enthusiasm for this rare treat.
“I’m halfway to a brain freese right now,” he announced as we got back on the road.
A hot shower for the big guy back home, and it didn’t take him long to hear the ding-a-ling of the ice cream truck rounding the corner.
“OH PLEASE, MOM, PLEASE!!”
“Is it worth it to spend five bucks of your birthday money on an ice cream cone?”
Killjoy.
“YES! YES!”
He grabbed his wallet, Oxbear right behind him, as he sat on the front porch in his jams, waiting for the big arrival. It took awhile. Finally, Oxbear charged up the car and they drove out to locate the disappearing ice cream truck. Puck returned later, ice cream stick victoriously in hand.
As he stashed it in the freezer for another day, he announced grandly, “Only two dollars and fifty cents, Mom!”