Life Patterns
“Oooh, Mom. My feet still stink!”
This is Puck after a shower on a Monday night, wondering why the hot water and soap didn’t do their respective jobs. Clearly, no seven year-old boy knows how to scrub right.
I had plunked him in the shower in the first place because he had sweated out 90 minutes of bikes and scooters with Anna, Eddie, and the neighbor sisters that evening after dinner.
When we had returned from school, the older neighbor sister ran right up to us as I switched off the car engine.
“PUCK! PUCK! PUCK! Can you play with us?”
“Well … I have some homework …”
“We’re playing ponies!” she called over her shoulder as she ran off. “Want to play ponies with us, Puck?”
“Okaaaay … heh, heh.” Puck looked to me in slight confusion as to what to do. I think part of him wondered if this was a moral decision to make.
“What?” El Oso asked me Sunday evening. “Does he just have girlfriends everywhere?”
“Looks like it.”
“Does he know it?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
Anyway, Puck was in a good mood today because one of these “girlfriends” decided not to bother him during school. Mary had hit the brakes, at least for a few days, and there were no pencils jammed inside his water bottle or choking hazard reports.
Instead, I heard him chatting with his buddies at the classroom door, ready to march to the gym for pick-up.
“Puck, can you hold my place in line?”
“Sure,” he replied, clearly in a great mood. “Why not?”
Then he saw me waiting in the hall.
“Here, Mom!”
Backpack and lunchbox came flying through the air at me. I’ve learned to have the reaction time of a cat.
We dropped back in at the Big House for about half an hour to pick up a few things. Mom did spelling and reading homework with Puck while Carrie and I worked on a few things. She’s taken the written portion of pilot’s license test on Friday, which keeps things pretty busy.
Then the drive home for grilled cheese sandwiches. And while I’m not sure Puck ever ended up playing “ponies,” he did manage to recreate long enough to make his feet stink very nicely.