"Sick Day"

Puck’s “sick day” at home was hardly a sick day. But with the school’s 24-hour-symptom-free policy, Puck got to stay home.

It started with oatmeal. Puck start contemptuously at the bowl in front of him. Oatmeal isn’t his favorite, but he eats it anyway. Usually, he waits until it “sets” or “gets moldy”, as he likes to call it for some reason, and focuses on a banana at first instead.

“Come on, Puck. Get that oatmeal down.”

“Can I have something else to eat while this gets moldy?”

Yum.

We had another beautiful day on our hands for late winter. After lunch, Puck and I played a little kickball/handball in a particularly quiet street inching towards the upper 50s. Every time the ball went catapulting into our yard, Puck tiptoed around the swarms of bumble bees to retrieve it.

“I don’t want to make them mad,” he said, nervously.

Oxbear joined us later – during more readings of Calvin & Hobbes – able to spend the second half of his work day at home. Windows open.

Dinner was on the table. Bowls of black beans and brown rice. Puck was about as thrilled as he had been at breakfast. Then he saw me add small mounds of sour cream and guacamole to the top of my portion. His eyes bugged with possibilities.

“OH YEAH! Put some of that on there, Mom!”

Devoured.

So, dinner concluded, homework assignments complete, and I pulled out the hair shears to work on the boys’ heads. While shavings of Puck’s blonde hair fell to the linoleum, Crackers became curious. She threw herself under the shower of “fairy dust”, rolling around in all that wealth, sneezing, and pawing at tufts of golden hair as they fell in clumps on her head. I came under the impression that she felt like she was participating in some sort of carnival game. She wasn’t interested in Oxbear’s hair though. Maybe she only likes blondes.

A fifteen minute call with my – for lack of better definition – publisher, and the evening was already shading into that moss-blue, windows still open, gold lamp glow, early spring evening birds in the trees.