Ch. 263; Vol. 10
Puck called to me from the loo again. “Mom, look how bad Calvin’s being! He’s suuuu-per bad!”
The child’s inspiration. Inspiration to delay math. Eventually, he returned to the kitchen, but not before a new distraction out the window…
“MOM! COME LOOK!”
“What is it, Puck?”
“Come see!”
“Just tell me what it is, bud.”
“I CAN’T! IT’S TOO AMAZING!”
A broken tree branch in the neighbor’s front yard can be amazing, I guess, under the right circumstances.
Sure it had rained in the night. Woke me sometime around two o’clock in the morning, I think, heavy rain. And I guess the wind must have been up, too. Finally.
Math resumed. Puck accused Crackers of swiping his pen…
“She stole it, Mom! She stole it! And if I try to take it away from her, she’ll claw meh [me]!”
Flashcards take a long time because Puck likes to dress up his best bad Harvard accent and sell me answers with raised eyebrows…
“Seven plus two is so easy because it’s… heh… heh… heh… because it’s… think think think think think think think… because it’s so so so easy… it’s my favorite one, in fact… and it is most def-nitely… think think think think…”
It’s not all roses.
Grandma Snicketts was getting regular visits in the hospital. Dad would bring his Bible and read to her, also from the autobiography that she gifted all of us many Christmases ago. Things were almost looking a little better, although Uncle Clarence came in from Virginia, and Uncle Balthasar made tentative plans to return from Italy before the weekend.
Late that morning, Carrie texted…
“Grandma is taking another turn for the worse. She’s been having seizures.”
How much can one – albeit tough cookie – take?
It wouldn’t do any good explaining to Puck about what was happening. He walked past with a lump of blinking gray fur to his room for Quiet Hour. From behind closed door he called loudly…
“Mom, Crackers is licking my knee! That means that she loves me!”
Puck’s inventions and collaborations were strewn all over the house. There were even BB pellets in the fruit bowl. And I was sort of feeling the need to just can the whole idea of a jog and pasta in tomato sauce for the evening…
“Let’s have a feast evening, Puck. Pizza and brownies.”
Puck jumped from his seat for a little dance…
“YEAH! YEAH! This is the night I’m talkin’ about! You’re the best!”
He threw both arms around my neck.
So it was eight bouncy balls, all copies except for a new lime green version.
And another visit to Schnuck’s.
Still any mother that has to remind her son to…
“Honey, eat your pizza; not just the cucumbers.”
…has something going for her.
A man with a foot-long ponytail and his six year old son were at the door. Bær and Puck answered it. They were selling popcorn for Cub Scouts. My boys bought caramel. The dad got a kick out of Puck, who offered a foot stool for the son to sit on, “if your legs get tired”.
“How old is he?” the dad asked.
“Seven,” Bær said.
“No! I’m SIX!” Puck protested.
It happens. The dad is a Molecular Biologist and Technical Writer and teaches Sport Fencing.
My neighborhood, I confess, continues to surprise me.
