Thoughts From my Boys

It was after eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning. After serving up large plates of bacon, eggs, and toast as breakfast-for-lunch for my three boys, I had errands to run. But not before Puck decided to share a joke with me:

“Mom! What is greasy bacon’s favorite kind of sport?”

“What?”

“Basketball… because they dribble a lot.”

Improvement. Definitely improvement…

“Puck, let me see your shoe size,” I said.

The kid goes through pairs of shoes and sets of clothes like water. Puck passed me his shoe, which I suddenly realized looked larger than my own.

“Try on his shoe,” Oxbear suggested.

It fit. Then I had to go.

“Stay out till nine,” Oxbear suggested. “Go do whatever you want. You know, do all those things you love to do. Go to a bookstore out in public, like you like to do. Strike up a conversation with a stranger, you know, like you like to do. And get a scone with nuts, you know, like you like to do.”

So I went to the Big House to haul rocks with my sisters.

When my boys came home to join me from their adventures at the park at around 3:45 in the afternoon, Puck proudly presented his latest find from the woods.

“Mom! Remember how I’ve always wanted my very own horseshoe?”

Well, I remember how this kid wants his very own one of everything. But, sure.

“Look what I found in the creek!”

He held up a completely rusted-over specimen of an ancient horseshoe, nails included. Looked like the real thing. This was a good find.

“I’ll bet it came from the Civil War, Mom!”

That was a distinct possibility, given that a battle had taken place just about half a mile north of the creek. Puck immediately got to work cleaning up this special relic.

As we drove out for some dinner later in the evening, conversation temporarily drifted to the future.

“So what are you going to name your kids one day, Puck?” I asked him.

He thought for a second and said, “Bob, and Bob, and Bob.”

Then the boys started singing an old Gospel chorus together, Yali copying all their “amens” with a big grin on his face.

Puck concluded with, “I think Yali is going to be a Christian when he grows up.”