December 9

The wind was wild that morning. Collette heard it before she opened the curtains. And shortly after breakfast, the snow arrived, like a whipped snowglobe.

As OLeif prepared to leave for work that morning, Puck was relieved, as usual, that OLeif would be taking his scooter, and not the car. But he would be warming it up for them before departure.
“Start car, Daddy,” said Puck happily. “Ready? Set. Go! One, two, nine, fourteen, ‘leven…”
“You don’t even know what eleven is,” said Collette, washing his hands of his breakfast oatmeal.
“’leven’s not four,” said Puck.
“Yes, Puck. Eleven is not four.”

Puck also had an interesting concept of increments of time. Whenever Collette would say:
“Soon, Puck. Soon.”
Puck would respond with:
“Not soon, Mama. In a little while.”
Or vise versa.

Over at the house, Mom and Linnea were preparing to run errands for the morning.
“I come with us?” Puck asked excitedly. “I come wiff us?”
But instead, he stayed behind to paint water colors, eat waffles, and put tinsel on his belly, saying:
“We makin’ Puck pretty?”

Then Carrie brewed a special Egyptian tea recipe with ‘cutie’ oranges for her last Arabic class the following evening. Puck helped Mom and Linnea bake two dozen cupcakes for Linnea’s Christmas Classic Conversations party the next afternoon, whereupon Puck insisted that, ‘I can’t have sugars. Sugars not good for me.’ And Francis memorized the capitals of Eastern Europe. And Eleda called Linnea to begin making plans to get their ears pierced together.

When it came time to end the day after Portuguese and frosting the cupcakes, the usual goodbyes to Puck would be said.
“Why you want to leave me?!” Carrie would cry in her best Greek accent.
And then Puck would grin and say, “I see you tomorrow, Sun!”
And Carrie would say, ‘Molto bene!’
Puck would follow suit. And there would be a double kiss or a kiss of the hand and a, ‘Madam’ and a ‘Monsieur’.
This would be followed with a high five for Francis, after which Francis would say, ‘High one! Knuckle bump!’

It was bitter cold. By eight o’clock that evening, it was seventeen degrees. The windchill was zero.