A Nephew's Care
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Puck would have slept all day.
Collette finally coaxed him awake at eight o’clock. The tired little fella had been up till nearly nine the previous night, and wasn’t thinking much about snapping his twelve-hour night an hour early.
Yet oatmeal called.
And rain… briefly at least.
The sun swept away the rain before eight that morning with the whoosh of a train’s whistle caught on the wind, which had died considerably in the night.
During breakfast, a squirrel hopped across the patio with a large specimen of cakery stuffed into his mouth. For a few moments they just stared. What first appeared as an enormous donut, they quickly realized was likely a bagel. Puck’s eyes opened wide as he began to giggle at the ridiculous sight.
Mom called just before nine o’clock to check in on things. Francis was being taken to Physicians First to have a check done for Pink Eye. When Puck heard the news, he took battle action…
“Oh, Fran! The big bully! Has a pink eye! Me and Daddy are going to discuss this plan and we are going to get every food in our house to make Fran feel well. Alright? Just me and Daddy are going to discuss this. Yes. We are going to find pork steaks. And milk. And pink milk…”
“Why pink milk?” Collette asked him.
“Because pink milk always helps stuff. And white milk. And Chick-fil-A nuggets… And a big tray. Mama, I need a big tray. Three trays, please.”
The gray returned quickly.
No more rain fell, but it was too cold to do anything outside anyway.
Leia had the flu.
So Puck hunkered down with a bowl of orange slices.
He spent the primary portion of his later Quiet Hour composing three meal trays for Francis, including an arrangement of drinking glasses. He was highly specific about which glasses he wanted.
…While Collette listened to the Cards play the Red Sox on KMOX. And a first win for the Redbirds, 9-3.
The afternoon was a quick succession of retrieving the mail, reviewing numbers and words with Puck, and an hour walk combined with 100 jumping jacks throughout for Collette (who had hardly sat down the whole day, making attempts to do so more often). Puck ran his tail feathers off behind her, acting as caboose. Then 59 sit-ups for the athletic little monster. Had to get that energy out somehow.
Pork chops into the oven.
And reports were that Francis did, indeed, have Pink Eye. And an ear infection. The payoff for working at a public pool.
A little Bing Crosby into the evening.
OLeif returned early, as was now his official habit, with a visit to the eye doctor for his larger silver-rimmed shades. He looked older, and less like a modern nerd. More like a nerd morphed between the 70’s and 80’s.
It didn’t take Puck long to root out OLeif’s old pair of glasses.
“Hey!” he said happily, “I could use these as a reflector!”
OLeif wasn’t long sitting. Back out for a book of ghost stories from the library, a jar of creamy Maranatha peanut butter for Collette, and photography lights from Simon Boogey for a shoot Izzy had booked on Friday.
Puck, meanwhile, was enjoying a blueberry yogurt for dessert and contemplating further useful uses for this new ocular apparatus, that had not been officially gifted to him.