Little Ears
With Joe and Jaya docked somewhere in Belize that morning, Puck and I breakfasted across from cascades of sweet honeysuckle past the patio glass. A sign of spring being a success.
Puck waited in the car while I fueled up at QT. After a minute, I heard him trying to pop open the car door with important information to relay:
“Sorry for picking at the skin on my thumb, Mom. And I saw a yellow car.”
“Okay, bud. Don’t worry about it.”
I shut the car door for him, but immediately he tried to open it again:
“Let me hit you, Mom!”
The everlasting “yellow car” game. My shoulder should really be bruised by now.
“Not so hard, Puck,” El Oso admonished him. “Just a tap. Mama is a flower.”
Mom was due to visit Grandma for a post-wedding chat in Florissant. Sometimes we live in Pride & Prejudice.
Irish walked through the front door from the Honda dealership to plate some breakfast. I watched her:
“Ah, nothing like leftover pizza, sour cream, and Coke for breakfast,” I said.
Irish grinned, “I love sour cream… I can’t wait to have my own place.”
With Mom out and Francis working strange shifts at work, it was just Puck and the girls on a quiet warm afternoon in late May. He joined us on the porch for awhile, not thrilled with the rising heat:
“Go scooter out there for awhile,” I suggested. “Get some sun on those pale legs.”
“Naw…” he reasoned. “It’s vitamin B, and it gives me sunburns.”
We drove out to St. Peters, the four of us, to pick up a package of volleyball medals for Irish’s team that evening. On the way back, Puck imitated all the family members ranging from low gravely voices (Dad), to high light voices (Mom):
Dad: “Let’s go watch some planes!”
Mom: “Oh! I think I’ll go take a nap!”
Irish: “Oh! I guess I’ll go back and mess up my room!”
Most of the afternoon he found ways to play with the long orange scarf from the Puck & Grandma box. It was such a slow afternoon, I even let him watch a Lego movie on Netflix. By dinner, the orange scarf had become a super hero cape, a first for the little man, stuffing buttered noodles by the wads down his throat.
After a late-evening bluegrass rehearsal at Old Church for El Oso, he finally wandered back up the driveway after nine-thirty. Busy, busy man.