Ch. 206; Vol. 10

“Thank you for being such a good boy today, bud.”

Puck grinned professionally from his booster seat behind me.

“My pleasure.”

That was Wednesday evening, waiting at the fuel station for Simply Apple apple juice.

[Mama’s Memory w/ Puck’s Drawing Assistance]

Thursday morning, Puck handed me another sock with a hole in the heel…

“Please cut this off, Mom?”

I took the blue-handled scissors, obligingly.

Arm warmers.

His latest idea, and first invention of the day.

“Mom. Can I take the stroller on the walk and buckle Crackers into it?”

“I don’t think that would work too well, son…”

“What about the pumpkins?”

Two plush pumpkins, a heavy blue rope, and a faded Winnie the Pooh baby stroller later, we were figuring out the logistics of hauling these items down a sunny street.

“Aah! It’s not working!”

The stroller lay on its side against the pavement, waiting resuscitation…

“You’ll have to attach the rope differently, Puck.”

Fortunately, my son has the inventor’s brain – a function inherited from his dad – and figured out how to secure the rope to both handles for equilibrium’s sake, then latched the rope around his neck like a plough horse, which I altered to his chest.

Success.

So much so, that this odd site requested to walk the entire neighborhood instead of the usual half.

I’m too old to be embarrassed.

By these things.

The Bear had contacted me earlier that morning…

“What do you think of me buying [Simon]’s truck?”

Truck?

Truck…

I realize we live on the edge of what is still acceptably considered “St. Louis”. Or not… so acceptably… But this does not provide license to tinker with the world of pick-up trucks without sobering consequences.

But if the husband wants the pick-up truck…

…the husband gets the pick-up truck.

Puck religiously added more and more layers of tin foil to his “Donut Ark” throughout the day, or as he called it – “The Bowl that Transforms Into a Boat and Floats”…

“DRAWING TIME!”

Another stack of ancient blue-green school paper. If those papers weren’t a day younger than 80 years, it wouldn’t surprise me. Who’d have thought this kid would ever interest himself in the arts after all that avid protesting during the Pre-K years? He might as well have been holding homemade poster board signs, chanting, “WE HATE ART! WE HATE ART!”

Not so any more.