First Grade Problems
El Oso scrambled eggs on the stove, pulled out the tin of dominoes from Walgreen’s, while Puck complained about life being difficult. To his dad’s, “Son, right now is easy. Just wait until you’re older and you have problems,” Puck answered, “Dad, I have problems now. Addition problems.” A round of breakfast dominoes became domino races on the table with a, “Dane it!” from Puck every time he accidentally toppled them. Some empty milk jug soccer in the kitchen sent El Oso out the door on his way to Monday morning.
The same Monday at home continued with the monthly tornado siren test and the washing machine rolling off-kilter in the basement, to which Puck told me over his math book, “It makes me think it’s coming up the stairs to get me.” It does have an ominous tone. During a later-morning phonics lesson, he eyed the penciled-over book page borrowed from his aunts’ and uncles’ former grade school days.
“Mom? You know how my little brudder is nosey?”
“We don’t know if he’ll be nosey.”
“Well, I think he will be nosey. So you know we will have to make sure he doesn’t look at this book when he uses this book so he won’t copy my work.”
At lunch, Puck snipped off bits of his frayed black jeans with the hair scissors, washing them in a separate drinking glass, saying something about, “from my doggone days, I love it.” Minutes later, he pulled Crackers back into his room, which was interrupted towards the end of the hour with, “MOM! CRACKERS JUST ATE A BALLOON! SHE JUST ATE A BALLOON!” I asked him later how sure he was that this was true; he seemed convinced. “I heard some popple-ing, popple-ing.”
Oh, there were other things in the afternoon to keep him busy. A dance party where he thought jumping on my back and hanging on was the next best move. “I’ll koala you, Mom!” Stuffing a reserve pillow case with all of the medical supplies in the hall closet, “Just in case we’re walking down the street some day and we see a kid who needs help.” Cotton balls with Sharpie-d pupils fastened over his eyeballs with electrical tape, the roll of which I found him nervously gnawing over a particularly ridiculous “I Love Lucy” episode at dinner.
El Oso was meeting old NAWS friends at El Gave: Simon (motorcycle-induced partially torn hamstring) and Alfonso. And there were no further repercussions from the swallowed balloon.
Puck’s Weekly What-do-You-Want-to-be-When-You-Grow-Up Status:
“A doctor and a scientist.”