I've Forgotten How to Multitask

Puck had been sporting an Angry Birds tattoo for several days. The endless blonde cowlick stuck up on the back of his head. While his breakfast oatmeal cooled, he played “Pharaoh” [mummy] and “Moses” [a button].

“…but I’m already dead.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ll prove it.”

“I see.”

“Thank you. See you later. Alligator.”

Appropriate. The conversation then became whispers. And something about flying saucers and… underwear?

“Puck, why haven’t you finished your oatmeal?”

“Sorry, Mom. I was too busy building a transporter for the mummy and the button.”

“I thought Moses was the button.”

“He is. They made friends. So now I’m building it for it to… go to Heaven.”

He spent the rest of the early morning wrapping the entire cover of his new Mead notebook with blue painter’s tape.

Some time later, Puck saw my evening primrose oil capsule at lunch, and wanted it. Of course.

“For decoration.”

I try to hide these things sometimes.

After lunch, he ran outside to try to bury his mummy in the dirt – I don’t know why – spaghetti sauce behind his ear. I had cleaned the rest of it out of his hair already. These things just sort of happen with my son.

When we drove out after dinner so I could convene for the evening’s activities, Puck joined his aunts in groaning at the smell of Dad just returned from a run…

“Sun,” he sidled over to her, “how ’bout we play a game to get our minds off the smell…”

He could work some angles.

7:30PM.

I was squirming. It wasn’t really the time for squirming yet; I predicted in six. But it starts early. And so I joined Carrie-Bri, Rose, Lucia, and Grewe at the Fox and Hound in the Valley for quesadillas and large screen televisions. Despite the girls’ involved conversations regarding airport security, concert security, and Colorado blizzards, we still left at the end of the 9th. I could only ask so much of my sisters.

Back home, the innings stretched into thirteen, and I couldn’t put the screen down. I was rewarded not long later with a magnificent Carlos Beltran walk-off single shortly after midnight.

My son would be up in six hours.

Worth it.