December 28

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

It had only been six days since Collette and Puck had been home alone in the quiet early winter. But it had seemed a great deal of time longer than that. So it was very good to be home together for some peaceful hours.

Puck began his breakfast drinking cow’s milk out of one of the ginger beer bottles from the Doctor Who viewing. He had been dead set on taking home one of those bottles the previous night.

And OLeif scrambled up a pan of eggs before leaving for work, which he presented to Collette, who was catching a few extra winks while she was still able. ‘Sleeping in’, was still mostly a foreign concept. Even when Puck was spending the night with his Nana or Grandma, Collette would habitually rise from slumber at the same hour.

This was followed with Collette and Puck analyzing, in full, his current toy and book situation. Puck labeled everything to be given away to ‘babies who had no toys’, and Collette assisted by tossing everything of little, to no value. One sizable boxful later, and another bag of trash, half equal in thickness, Puck was ready to play with his Christmas presents.

Some time shortly before lunch, Puck found Collette’s box of Dead Sea products that Ivy had given her. He looked at the picture of the woman on the front of it.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“The Dead Sea. That is where I went.”

Puck thought for a moment.

“Did you swim in the dead ocean?” he asked next.

Lunch was grilled turkey sandwiches.

Into the afternoon…

The weather was much like a very early spring, really.

Puck pretended to nap.

Collette attempted to control her level of chocolate intake. Mini Reeses peanut butter cups. German chocolates. Hiding the candy canes and Christmas M’nMs from the Puckster…

A jog.

Puck’s mini Playdough factory.

Merchant of Venice soundtrack.

And for the very first time, Collette played Chutes & Ladders with her baby boy.

Evening.

Fajitas, while Puck watched a ceramic statue of a horse and its baby, playing make-believe with them.

“Very suspicious here. On the tail. Very suspicious. Very suspicious here. On the head. Very suspicious here. I guess we’re done… hunting for things.”

Catechism.

Jonah.

Puck fell asleep listening to his Bible on CD.

Hebrews.

Seven-minute phone customer service interview from Ameren.

OLeif returned from one of two days at work with an Archer Farms box of high protein cereal from Target.

Meanwhile…

Mom had spent her day with Grandma Combs at the Macy’s tea room downtown, where Uncle Mo had lunch two to three times a week. Collette remembered visiting the same room with Mom, Grandma, and Carrie, when she and Carrie had been very young, the exact same height, and still dressed like twins. A week had never gone by when they were not asked if they were, indeed, twins.

Joe had found a pair of nice Pumas with some of his Christmas cash.

Rose was supposedly to have the posse of boys over for a movie night at Ivy’s, provided they promised to behave themselves and not consume all of the Little Debbie’s in the pantry or scare off Max, the cat.

And Collette began to read the ingredients on the Kiss my Face pack from Christmas, including: honey, olive oil, apricot kernel oil, ‘certified organic floral water of rosemary’, sea salt, wheat protein, lime oil, fir needle, ivy extract, skullcap flower extract, wild cherry extract, ‘infusion of certified organic herbs of horsetail’, pineapple fruit extract, and Iceland moss.

In conclusion, Collette knew a day was pretty fine when the worst part about it was flossing her teeth.