Rose's Accident

Tuesday, July 31, 2007


The morning began with OLeif up again at 5:00am to prepare for his day. After Puck had been fed and put back down for his morning nap, Collette caught OLeif rinsing out the coffeepot. He wasn’t trying to hide it either.


OLeif. Shame, shame.”


I’ve been drinking it in the mornings now.”


Caffeine.”


I only had one cup.”


Oh well, if you die young…”


OLeif laughed.


Outside, a large gray cat jumped over the double fence in the green shadows of the rising sun.


“I was in an accident.”

Rose greeted Collette with that as soon as she walked in the door that morning.

“Louis was driving and the brakes failed or something. So instead of running into everyone in front of us, Louis swerved and was heading into oncoming traffic. Then he swerved again and we ran into a ditch.”

Puck laughed.

“But we had fun on the lake. We were all on the raft and Giggles told me goodbye and tried to push me off. Then I shoved him off instead and he went flying. There was also this guy there that looked like a bullfrog. Well, actually, he looked more like a bass.”

She made a face like a fish.

“Aunt Fish,” Puck thought, and giggled again.

Some short time later, Carrie returned from coaxing Elizabeth into taking a hike at Klondike, in preparation for Argentina.

“When we walked to the coffee house from her house yesterday, Elizabeth was saying, ‘It’s so nice being out in the fresh air.’ Then she swallowed a bug. So today while we were hiking she was thirsty and said, ‘Carrie, give me some of that water. Me and the bug are thirsty.'”

Meanwhile, everyone but Mom and Linnea had clustered in the living room while Puck chugged his bottle. Francis had just put on Puck’s Baby Mozart DVD. The bright colors, shining stars and moons, and music, mesmerized them.

Soon, Joe hit the shower before leaving for the first day of college orientation – four and a half hours of it. On the way down the stairs, he practiced spitting his gum wad up in the air and catching it back in his mouth.

Puck, who had woken from his nap with teething pains, eventually calmed himself while Mom rocked him. Carrie, standing over him made goofy faces as her mess of (now uncombable) blond hair bobbed around her face.

“Ooooh. Can I grow one of those?” Puck thought.

“Look at that tummy!” Carrie poked his bulging belly. “I think we need some latitude and longitude lines here.”

Later, Puck was having trouble getting back to sleep. He sat in his bouncy seat inside his blanket in Dad’s office while Collette and Carrie finished the Australian travel notes.

“Bury down in there,” Carrie told Puck. “Like a squirrel in the leaves. I don’t want to see those little peepers open. No, no laughing. You go to sleep now.”

Eventually, after she gave him a little water in his bottle, and his wow again, Puck conked for two hours.

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Jamie Larson
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