Noah's Kind of Day

A crack of thunder started the morning as El Oso left early for work and Puck transferred to the couch with a fat packing box of Legos. I slept in after back-to-back nights of late ballgames.

After breakfast, Puck watched Noah’s deluge from the front windows, streets coated in clearwater rivers.

“Can I go outside for awhile?”

Summer rain; sure. Still, he asked to put on his snow pants under the rain coat. I don’t know how long he was out there, but he stomped every puddle on the block almost. Happy. He walked back inside with the rain still falling some time later with a few requests.

“Can I have a hot bare shower and then some hot chocolate and then some iPad?”

He thinks these things through. A “bare” shower, by the way, means no soap, no shampoo; just water.

We were working through a lunch of grilled cheese while I looked over the calendar.

“You start school in twelve days, bud. Are you excited?”

He stared at me, eyes half-closed in thought. “I’m about to pass out.”

“Why?”

“Because things will be hard.”

“What do you think will be hard about it?”

“Everything. … The playground is pretty small.”

When pressed for more examples of difficulty, he claimed to be out of ideas. If that’s the only “hard thing” for him about school, life will just be too easy.

The rain continued to fall in the afternoon. No friends out, but Puck took the bike out for a spin between raindrops, waving traffic around him with a confident arm.

More downpour during dinner. Crackers sprawled on the floor while Puck ate dinner over a Disney flick about a dog from the 70s, indulging in the last of his summer break. Even if he doesn’t fully comprehend what that means yet. Aside from the wisdom of Calvin & Hobbes, of course.