Half Day
School was a small chaos that morning. Not actual chaos, just about twice as packed as it usually is because of Grandparents Day. Puck was back to his normal healthy self again, and seemed pretty eager to show Gloria around the 4th grade classroom. So off we went.
Meanwhile, Yali and I waited it out on the playground, because I knew there was no way he was keeping quiet for two hours indoors until chapel. He toted along his big green rubber dinosaur and parked himself on the bench while he watched four classes of Preschoolers and Pre-Ks running through the jungle gym. The little boys clustered around us to stare at Yali and talk to me about dinosaurs and brothers and other boy things until it was time to go.
Yali surprised me and sat almost the entire time in the pew on my lap between Heidi and one of Heidi’s friends, who kept talking about how cute he was between Scripture verse recitation and songs.
“Is he always this good-natured?” one of the moms asked me at the end.
“Well…”
If she had seen us at IKEA a few hours later, she would have probably changed her mind.
IKEA. I had been to one before, in another state, a long time ago. But there was something about visiting a three-level shopping extravaganza that left me a little less than excited.
Puck, however, was charged up for the trip. He had allowance dollars to spend, after shelling over some of them for book fair merchandise, and decided to splurge a little in this crazy new world of items he had never seen before.
While he examined everything, Yali whined and whined and whined. Mostly because he wanted to try out every bed we passed. Probably an indication that he needed a good nap.
Four dollars later, Puck walked away with a glass beer mug and a Russian-style costume handlebar mustache. He seemed very pleased with his purchases. Then he and Oxbear filled a bag of Swedish candy mix on the way out. A cranky Yali was allowed a stuffed panda bear, at Puck’s urging. Oxbear loaded up on microwaveable plates, which made him very excited. And I picked up a pack of band-aids. Because they were red, blue, and yellow. And I have a hard time resisting bright colors.
And then our first movie night in the new place: “Twister”. Which made us laugh. Because most movies can’t be taken seriously during the Snicketts sibling movie night.