The Cough Before Spring

“It’d be a little uncouth of me to butcher that pork at my desk, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes I think it would.”

When we opened the curtains this morning, about three inches of fluff, and rising. It was enough to keep Oxbear at home, working from his desk. Hence the suggestion of “butchering” several slabs of pork while he worked. But there was no way I would be cleaning up after that one.

Meanwhile, the “snow day” had come one day too early for Puck. He was already off anyway for Presidents Day. Therefore, I allowed him thirty minutes of Minecraft before breakfast.

“Okay, bud. Breakfast.”

“Alright, Mom. I just have to collect some lapis la-zoo-ee.”

Halfway through the morning we were deep into math papers (go figure, he wanted to do them anyway), and I sliced an orange, eight-ways, rind on, as Puck likes them. He came running for me, thrust both arms around my middle and squeezed hard, enough to make you feel like you need to wilt.

“Yay, MOM! Just how I like them! You’re the best!”

I’m pretty sure my spleen popped, or something.

When he sat down to math again, eager to continue adding change and deciphering word problems, he brought the ancient tape recorder with him, which he used as an ear-splitting megaphone to announce his answers.

“Aw, yeah. Yeah, yeah.”

Tucked in with padding to the gills, a very happy Puck flew outside in the sunshine of the afternoon, stuffed into many layers of coats and plastic shopping bags as moisture defense. I’m not sure how long he stayed out there with buddies from down the street. But the outing was clearly a success.

7:30 – bedtime. Puck had just bunked down for the night.

“Mom?”

“Yes, bud?”

The quick shuffle of footies across the floor.

“Can you look up this drill that goes into the earth? That spins around and around and drills down into the ground – I don’t know if one exists – and is rechargeable!” His eyes were so big at the idea of being able to drill his own hole in the backyard.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Alas, Amazon does not carry heavy-duty rechargeable earth drills.