Finally

Puck walked out of the gym popping the cap off an empty glue stick in a newly invented game. “Watch, Mom!” He shot it through the air off and on down the brick hallway. Simple entertainment is usually the best. “Isn’t that great, Mom?”

We walked out the less-trafficked entrance to the parking lot in the balmy winds of recent storm.

Puck sniffed in deeply. “I can smell the rain!”

Indeed. It had stormed most of the morning at home – finally – the boys driving off to work and school just ahead of it. No tornado sirens, no 60 mph winds, but plenty of thunder, moderate lightning, and pea-sized hail for about two minutes in the early afternoon. I took breaks in between adoption paper work, phone calls, and emails to check out the storm action in the west. Keeping tabs on the radar, like any normal Snicketts kid.

“Aren’t you a little cold, Puck?” I asked him as we got into the car for the drive home.

“Nope. I’m fat-boned; you’re skinny-boned,” he said, like it was complete fact. “Remember?”

After a less-then-stellar homework attitude completed our afternoon, I got busy with a box of Bisquick. It had been a long time. Stacks of feathery pancakes waiting on the table. Suddenly, Puck’s attitude was improved.

“YUUUUM!” he declared, soaking the stack in a swamp of 100% maple syrup before I could temper the flood.

As dinner concluded, I removed a patch of Kerry Gold butter from his hair. When one consumes food with such enthusiasm, it’s difficult to keep it all confined to the plate and the mouth.

Rose joined us to complete the pancakes about fifteen minutes later as Puck topped everything off with a fat pack of juicy red strawberries for dessert, thankful that Rose was interested in sharing with him.

The windows had been open all day, leaving the house feeling heavy and muggy from rain, stacks of papers and book edges beginning to curl where the humidity had won the battle a little bit.

After Puck had been snoozing soundly for over an hour, Oxbear joined us in the basement for another viewing of “Teddy Bear”, following a week in the life of a Danish body builder vacationing in Thailand. One of my favs.

We finally wrapped things up just before eleven o’clock, crashing hard and fast before Wednesday arrived.

Cardinals: post-poned (sub-freezing temps in Chicago); +1.