One Percent

It was shortly after eight o’clock in the morning. Yali and I were sitting in the hospital waiting room again for his annual cleft palate clinic. Three hours of trying to keep a three year-old entertained between ENT, Speech, Plastic Surgery, and Dental. He watched a lot of National Geographic tiger videos and bear videos on my phone.

Sometime later in the afternoon I checked his discharge papers. By some miracle he had gained a whole pound in the last three weeks and enough height with it to finally graduate to the 1% club. 1% on height, 10% on weight.

A pause in the middle of the day at the Big House. Mom had worked her first official day in the school lunch room. Cherry was settling into life at the Big House. And Carrie-Bri was recovering from surgery by baking bread and trimming the bushes.

About 45 minutes after carpool, Puck, Bob, and Yali were still running around the playground together with a pack of other kids waiting on volleyball practice to end in the gym. They were fine out there until Puck began whining about the heat.

“I’M BOILING TO DEATH!” he proclaimed to me, on his way back inside.

Somehow, he and Bob managed to disappear while I let Yali feed at the drinking fountain.

So we walked off to find them. Halfway through our search, Bob turned up to head for home. Half an hour in, I got tired of the very unofficial game of hide-and-seek. Clearly Puck had bested me. I put in a request for him to be paged.

On the drive home, Puck asked to listen to his current favorite – “Forever Young” – while he filled me in on the day. A lot can happen in the space of six hours and forty minutes. A lot of learning, and a lot of drama.

Puck sighed like an old man who had seen some battle. “I don’t know. People just make up rumors these days. Oh, and by the way, Mom, my teacher isn’t 94. She’s 93.”

We’re getting there.