Seven Weeks

“Yali… Yali, don’t do it. Yali…”

I could see it in his eyes. The little punk was all prepared to hoist himself up onto Mom’s dining room table to grab the little ceramic squirrel salt and pepper shakers. They were just too tempting. There it went – that spry mischief gleam in his eyes.

“Yali…”

In a flash, he had pulled himself over the edge and then paused right in front of the pepper shaker. Ever so carefully, he kissed the top of its head, then slipped back off the table to the bench below.

He had enjoyed an eventful morning already. Eventful by two year-old standards. Puck’s class was leading chapel in school, so after the whole third grade class had goo-gahed over him in the foyer, staking claims on him for the following reception, we entered the sanctuary where Mom joined us shortly later.

Puck had one line for the service. The sound of his voice in the mic was much deeper and more grown-up than I expected. It surprised me. The kid was growing big time.

About twenty minutes later after a group photo, we followed the kids outside to the pavilion on a windy chill gray morning for cookies, muffins, and donuts. Violet had already whisked Yali out to the jungle gym for the slides. He certainly wasn’t disappointed.

A few minutes later, I left Mom in charge of little Yali for the drive back while I returned indoors for lunch duty.

It was already three o’clock. This time, Puck dumped everything out of his backpack into the hallway.

“Let’s see if Yali can fit inside my backpack!”

He did. Both Puck and Snicky were enthralled with the results. So when Puck realized he had left his thermos in the classroom, it was the perfect excuse to cart his cute baby brother around the school in the backpack trolley. Yali enjoyed the ride.

Bing English joined us for movie night, bringing the 1970s British comedy “Fawlty Towers” which got some good laughs. Rose, who had been awake for the past 39 hours straight due to work, tried to keep the old eyeballs open.

CARDINALS:

Atlanta: loss to Braves in technically “meaningless” game.