September 30

Puck was ready to go Wednesday morning. He pulled Collette’s red sweater out of the fresh laundry and asked to put it on.
“Zip my up, Mama,” he instructed. “Zip my up.”

Over at the house, the vacuum was out for use, so Puck picked up one of the smaller attachments and began to brush Trooper’s hair with it. Trooper sat obediently and waited while Puck worked on his mane.
“I sweepin’ Trooper!” Puck explained.

Then Carrie and Puck waited out in the sunshine in the car while Collette went to visit the doctor for the third and last time to have her arm checked for the PPD test. (She was clear.) And to pick up the notarized medical letter for the adoption.
On the way home, they dropped by Dairy Queen to treat themselves for lunch, and talked to Lady Plum who was working at the drive-through.

Toward the ending point of Puck’s nap, Collette heard him talking to himself after having examined his book, Dr. Dan the Bandage Man, which had a row of real band-aids fixed to the inside cover of the book. Puck thought he’d try out one of these little dandies.
“See? I gotta band-ay on it! Donkey’s got a band-ay on it!”
When retrieved from his port-a-crib, he slapped the wood floors in Carrie’s Uggs for the rest of his afternoon, riding around in his plastic tricycle, and looking out for Trooper.
“Trooper has big boo-boom? He have band-ay on it?”

Meanwhile, the family was returning from Atlanta that day. So Carrie baked up another giant chocolate chip cookie and cleaned up the house. She seemed to be feeling better and was involved in the usual hunting up of applicable jobs, listening to lectures, etc. Her first PhD courses began the following week.
Puck sat up at the kitchen counter next to her and helped her ice the cookie to read ‘Welcome Home’ for the family. And Puck dumped on candy sprinkles.