In-Betweens

Something was crinkling over my head. When I opened my eyes, a large paper ring was sitting around my face, framing my head on the pillow.

“Puck?”

“It’s a necklace for you, Mom.”

Puck had already been hard at work on his art projects before I was even awake. When I closed my eyes for a few more minutes, I felt Puck slip another paper wring around my wrist.

“Your bracelet.”

All decked out and nowhere to go. Well. Plenty to do anyway.

By the afternoon, Eddie and Puck were hard at work discussing life, conversations involving the best way to catch a cat and Eddie’s most recent grounding.

“Oh,” Puck encouraged him. “That’s good. That’s the best kind of ‘ground’.”

Eddie didn’t disagree.

This took place after an hour of quiet – “quiet” – in which Puck cleaned the mixing stand bowl with a water bottle and then washed a large Ziploc bag with soap in the sink. He was originally inspired to clean these objects after discovering the brittle stem of a hydrangea in the toaster. (No idea.) He decided to wash that too.

“If you don’t mind, Mom, I would like to soak this so it will be inedibally (inevitably) strong.”

Anyway, with Eddie around, bikes became more interesting. Scooters. Wrestling. Pounding the Chinese gong. I sent them back outside.

When Francis drove up at about four o’clock to play Minecraft with Puck – they had arranged it on Sunday – I drove off for groceries. When I got back an hour later, Puck ran out the front door.

“OH, MOM! WE WASTED ALL THIS TIME! OH NO! FRANCIS HAS BEEN ASLEEP THIS WHOLE TIME!”

Indeed, he was. He continued to snooze while I put sandwiches and strawberries on the table for dinner. Adding a chocolate milk to his plate, he chugged it all down before departure.

Evening brought in more mosquitoes and El Oso just in time for bedtime wrestles and discussions.

“Pick out a book to read, Puck.”

“Okay, Dad. After I go lift some weights.”