Five
In the afterglow of celebrity bowling – in which neither Carrie or myself actually picked up a bowling ball – we were now five days removed from the next Snicketts kid walking the aisle. All those ten years later.
Puck helped me start things off by once again describing how irresponsible authors of early history textbooks can be regarding their descriptions of ancient life:
“Ah! They don’t really know. They have no evidence for that. They don’t have a time machine eder (either).”
The wind was rolling hard through the green in the middle afternoon. Puck and I hit up our usual Monday errands, including Puck’s wedding shoes, which he thought might be a tad tight:
“It’s okay. I guess I can manage it just for the wedding.”
In the checkout – as Carrie texted me the frustrating news from her 24th doctor; “no clue” – Puck bragged to me about the new brown lightsaber he was going to make next:
“It’s never been invented before! It’s going to be new! N-E-W. N-E-W. N-E-W. N-E-W. N-E-W…”
And back to the wind, Puck yanked his scooter and batting helmet out the front door:
“AW YEAH!”
He loves that wind too. Then finally, with little coaxing from me, for the first time ever, he went socks-off and climbed the front yard tree barefoot. Success. Very proud.
While we sat out in the wind together, I explained that he would probably be spending most of Friday with Jaya’s little brother, playing at the reception hall while we decorated:
“Good. I make friends fast. For how long?”
“Maybe five hours.”
“Ho ho! That is enough time to make five hundred friends, for me.”
Dinner concluded with a mug of microwaved milk; Puck had been waiting awhile for that “first” and chugged it immediately.
As we wrapped up Legos and books on the evening, Crackers lunged at him a few times looking for fun. Puck steadied himself after another attack, and looked carefully at me:
“It did hurt. But that’s okay. That’s how a man gets tough. Is there blood on my face?”
As El Oso pulled onto the street, Puck raced to the yard’s edge in airplane jams and red boots to take a spin behind the wheel. It’s become their tradition lately. So has practicing wiggling lazy eyes. He’s become a pro, just like his dad.