Starting Year Ten
On Puck’s 9th birthday, I watched him carry one of my kitchen cabinet drawers out to the back seat of the car. It didn’t actually occur to me to ask why. I think the older I get, the less I think to ask that question. Maybe I already filled my quota of the day. Anyway, it turned out that my kitchen drawer made a good Lego container for the ride to school. It was also returned in one piece.
Halfway through the morning, after Yali and I celebrated with Puck and all the other 3rd graders at school with yet more chocolate chip cookie cake, Carrie-Bri and I tried to record another podcast episode at the Big House. Somehow we managed to get it in between the backhoe in the yard and six workmen rattling the foundation of the house. Something akin to a small earthquake.
About an hour later, I saw Yali asleep in his carseat from my rearview mirror. Metallic baseball sticker stuck on his nose, wrapped in a shiny red super hero cape, holding a large photo of Fredbird in both his little brown paws. He was still asleep when I carried him into school. He didn’t stay that way for long. Soon, he was screeching his way back and forth between the little trampoline, bean bag chairs, and a box of raisins in Hans’ classroom.
“He is spoiled!” Puck declared, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
I can’t deny that.
Meanwhile, Puck had enjoyed a happy school birthday, and had things to discuss with me on the drive home.
“Do you know Batman’s real identity, Mom?”
“Ummmm…”
Puck’s shocked hazel eyeballs stared back at me through the rearview mirror. “BRUCE WAYNE!”
“Well, I can’t keep track of everything, son.”
“He’s a BILLIONAIRE, Mom! No, I mean he’s a TRILLIONAIRE and Superman is a billionaire.”
“He is? I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, and he’s the STRONGEST man alive! Can’t you give him a little credit for that, Mom? If he’s the strongest man in the world?”
“Oh. I thought Matt Holliday was the strongest man alive.”
“Ha … ha … ha … Hardy har har.”
Oxbear walked through the door with sacks of Culver’s for a birthday dinner where more loud neighbor boys – although Puck still takes the trophy in the “God-given loud voice” competition – helped him organize the pieces to his Lego Millennium Falcon. Don’t these boys just live the life.