These Boys
My five o’clock cuddle alarm slapped one arm over my back in an attempt to remind himself that I hadn’t gone anywhere. I think he might have eventually snoozed off again after he’d somehow wedged me to within two inches from the edge of the bed. How this tiny little person manages to push me to that edge on a nightly basis, I can’t quite figure out…
Yali and I hadn’t seen Grandma since Christmas. So in a cold, gray morning with a bit of a bite in the wind, we joined Mom and Carrie-Bri on a drive out to Florissant. That’s where Mom grew up, birth through high school. Dad eventually made it out that way too after leaving Kirkwood somewhere in junior high.
We stopped by one of those one-hundred-plus-year-old bakeries for a box of one of Grandma’s favorites – cannolis – sort of an unusual Italian pastry stuffed with a ricotta cheese mixture.
After about an hour in Grandma’s warm little apartment, discussing things like hearing aids and Spring Training plans, we headed west back to Weldon Spring for another soup lunch for Yali.
It was muy frio a little after three o’clock when we hit the playground during carpool. After a classic battle of “Who Does Yali Love More?” between Puck and Heidi, we warmed up inside before hitting the road again.
Enormous sunbeams poured through the west on our drive home, mixed with wind-torn pockets of light snow. Spring Training in Florida is sure looking pretty appealing about now.
I realized this evening that our little house is basically a perpetual rummage sale. I think most of this comes from our resident eight year-old packrat, always looking to make something new out of a bunch of junk. Sometimes when I say something about how I just can’t keep up with the endless mess, Oxbear just grins at me.
“Aw, you love it.”
Maybe I do. Just proves there’s a lot of creativity around here.
Meanwhile after dinner, Puck discovered a new way to memorize his 4s multiplication table. He was so excited, he asked to reward himself with a brownie.
“No sugar on a school night.”
Sometimes I make up rules on the spot. For their own good.
After Oxbear got Yali ready for bed, he informed me of Yali’s latest shenanigan. “You know how he likes to smother his face in my beard? Well, this time one of the hairs got stuck in his teeth, so he got all worried, pulled it out, and put it back in my beard.”