Light at the End of the World
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have ten Pucks. Just for grins. If I had ten Collettes, I probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference between two Collettes and ten Collettes. Decently quiet, not a lot happening, just marking checklists, keyboard tapping, some light conversation during the day. But… Ten Pucks? The kid who smashed himself in bed this morning with an open banana which hit me square in the face before I had a chance to react. Stretched out in red footies on the kitchen linoleum scrawling images of baseball players hiding in trash cans with black Sharpie on a large piece of cardboard, bellowing at all lung-capacity “Circle of Life” from the Lion King [just like his dad, I might add]. Who insisted on wearing his super shoes because…
“They are much faster, Mama. So I can run away from a snake, or if the snake is bothering you, I can run to get help for you.”
I think that the world will only ever have one Puck. And for that, I’m grateful. For many good reasons. But also… for the sake of my ear drums.
Two bananas, two packages of Boy Scout quality cheese sandwich crackers, an orange, blueberry yogurt, and sparkling white peach water later [yes, we were animal-watching again] – Puck munched while I caught up on emails, papers, etc., we were ready to go. We had access to wheels. So we hit the park hard at eleven, even if it was only for half an hour. The chipped metal apparatus bathed in flaking purple and yellow paint. My son paraded over them all in a setting that couldn’t seem any more like a northern Ireland playground. Maybe only more so if the sun had been absent; but it wasn’t. Jacket unzipped, velcro-ed shoes, Scandinavian skull cap. I don’t know; it just felt Irish.
Puck easily polished off about half a roast [with red pepper hummus for myself] before gearing up for another long swing in a mild afternoon… He advocated for one more run to the park as the afternoon progressed…
“Mom! I hear a merry-go-round crying tears of joy!” he yelled up from the oak swing, dodging lethal acorns rocketing down on us from the heights. They had some serious bounce.
We decided to visit Target today, [after another round at the park]. Maybe to make up a little for missing it Tuesday night. Nothing like a sack of “things” to keep a five year-old interested in a store, especially if he gets to pick the color of the new bath mat [red], a three-pair pack of winter knit gloves [blue], and his very own little 97-cent bath puff [lime green]. Plus a bag of mini Rolos and mini Reeses cups.
Despite my necessarily avid Verne-ian propensities throughout the years [thanks, Dad], I had yet to participate in the viewing of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” featuring Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre. So that’s what Puck and I bunkered down for with bowls stuffed high with hot macaroni and cheese for dinner. And then popcorn of course…
“If I eat popcorn, I will grow a beard,” Puck told me solemnly, completely enraptured with the undersea account.