It's Healthy, Mom
“Mom!” Puck walked into Oxbear’s office that morning with a mouthful of something I knew he wasn’t supposed to have. “Mom, I’m putting healthy stuff with my yogurt for breakfast.”
Somehow I got the idea he was prepping me for something. “What is it, Puck?”
“You know those mini Starburst from when Dad and I went to see The Jungle Book on Saturday?”
“No, Puck. You can’t put mini Starburst in your yogurt.”
As if already anticipating my reply, he came at me from a revised angle. “Mom, you know that’s only as much sugar as a box of raisins.”
He dropped a small box of Sun-Maid on the desk for emphasis.
“Those are still two different kinds of sugar,” I explained. “Now, please go take the Starburst out of your yogurt.”
Puck walked back into the kitchen to perform the unpleasant deed. “Okay, Mom. I’m putting healthy stuff with it though. I’m drinking water.”
So while Yali chilled at the Big House with Mom and the girls, I spent my morning up at the school cafeteria serving chicken and cheese quesadillas to all the young fry. When I walked out to greet Puck during his lunch shift, his buddy Snicky was apparently so overwhelmed by the magnitude of his endangered species homework spread out next to his lunchbox, that he fell over in his chair.
On the drive back – the world was an explosion of green again. Every tree. One big garden. Sometimes it can’t come soon enough. And with the late morning pushing into the low 80s, some kind wind, and white clouds in a blue sky, it was just about right. Only needed an evening storm to complete the picture. I heard talk of tornados later in the week.
Back at the Big House, Yali woke from his nap to a cocoa butter massage from two of his aunts. Puck is right; this kid is spoiled, to the nines.
Up at carpool the big news of the afternoon was freshly released yearbooks. Puck, Heidi, and some of the other kids ran around with Sharpies madly hunting signatures.
And of course no afternoon gym excursion with three boys would be complete without some kind of injury. Bob bit the dust once again and cut his lip as he went careening across the floor on a line of scooter boards. This time, the blood was kept to a minimum and I helped him soak it up before feeling anything of a light-headed nature. My reward will occasionally come in the form of enthusiastic – although not necessarily true – compliments:
“Mrs. Silverspoon! You’re good at basketball!”