The Circus
Three boys stared – mesmerized – at the spiral glitter wand Snicky held in one hand, watching the purple glitter, shiny stars, and crescent moons slowly sink to the bottom.
“What … is that?” they asked.
For a handful of third graders throwing themselves into each other on the gym floor only moments before, I was surprised at this fascination with an old girls’ toy. Puck had brought it from home. When I was about six years old or so, Dad – taking us on one of his many trips to the Science Center – bought Carrie-Bri and myself spiral glitter wands from the museum store, mine hot pink, Carrie’s bright blue. I had that thing for years, probably as mesmerized by it myself. I never remembered what happened to it, but one day Oxbear found a purple one for me. And now the boys play with it.
Anyway, it stopped the chaos for at least a full minute as Yali and I left them to ponder what, exactly, it was.
The circus of the afternoon was in full swing post-carpool. Between Puck, Heidi, and Yali, there was enough entertainment to pull up a beanbag chair and a bowl of popcorn. All this business of rolling, tumbling, running, laughing, and playing tag down the hallways… Somewhere between Puck’s lunchbox flying through the air and Yali throwing himself out of my arms towards freedom, I finally made the declaration to my sons that it was time to leave. Yali thrust out both arms to Hans, hoping for rescue. Not today, pal.
As we got back on the road, I could hear the sibling group text beginning to blow up. While I was busy getting Puck to Snicky’s house for an afternoon playdate, I later learned that Carrie was informing all of us about the snake they found in the basement toy room – photo included. Francis later claimed it was a copperhead. If there’s one thing that gives me the shakes, it’s snakes. I suddenly had second thoughts about continuing to record our weekly baseball podcast in Dad’s office.
Movie night. Francis walked through the door and slapped his gut, his universal signal for, “I want food!” Since Carrie-Bri was unable to attend given an early Saturday morning, she had warned me via text before his arrival:
“…Francis is a ding ding… he probably won’t bring anything and just show up demanding food. Don’t give him ANYTHING. (pig nose)”
That “don’t give him anything” eventually turned into Oreos and Cheez-Its when Ansel and his girlfriend also joined us, bringing Bruce Willis in “Red”. And Francis only fell over about twice in the big saucer chair, between himself and Ansel trying to lure Crackers over by snapping their fingers at her. She was not impressed.