The Mind of Boys
“Francis, let’s get your resumé going.”
“Okay.”
“Why are you just sitting there? Get your laptop.”
“But my laptop is all the way out in my truck.”
“What are you going to write your resumé on then? Post-it notes?”
When you grow up in the Snicketts family, your business is everyone else’s business. Usually it works out pretty well. Things get done. Degrees get earned, jobs get won, ideas get realized. Today was one of those days: phone calls from Francis to his two oldest sisters about math scores, classes, and a very hard-to-get-hold-of Bosnian A&P instructor.
Sometimes, however, it doesn’t work so well and a little monster called “co-dependence” evolves:
“First, I need some lunch. Collette?”
When I returned from recording, editing, and posting Cardgals Episode 57, my boys were running around in our air-conditioned cracker box while Oxbear finished scrubbing up the kitchen from all of their boy escapades that morning and afternoon.
I took the boys on a walk before the storm hit. Puck commandeered the scooter as we took off in the muggy afternoon heat. Immediately, Puck was not interested in circumnavigating the entire neighborhood.
“MOM! CAN’T I TAKE A SHORT CUT?!” he yelled on his way down the street.
“No, stay with us, bud.”
“Mom, I know this neighborhood inside out like a whistle!”
By the time we were 1/3 the way around, however, I was also feeling the humidity.
“MOM! I CAN’T BREATHE!”
“Come on, bud. It’s just a little exercise.”
“Mom! I’m sweating like a bean!”
That sounded like serious stuff. So we compromised at the halfway point and headed home.
The dinner hour was a little rocky. After Yali bit about halfway through my finger to express his displeasure over the mandatory three blueberries on his plate, and then bit Puck’s arm with the same intensity during a gymnastics event held between the two of them on the king-sized bed … he did some time on Oxbear’s lap in the living room. When all was repented of and forgiven, Puck carried him to bed, looking pretty squishy in his footy pajamas. They grinned at each other. Let’s hope for no chomping tomorrow.