Odd Duck Lamaze with Pollen Soup

Squinting through green at the metal heavy cloud cover each morning, the sneezing starts quick as the engine. It's pollen soup season in North Texas.

Preschoolers stick like velcro to the slippery slide, the slope coated with a mix of sap and pollen. In the elm tree above a married couple of cardinals share a branch with a hairy woodpecker. Sit stuck on the slide and look up.

Mrs. Mallard is nesting in the tall ornamental landscape grass outside the classroom window. Her head pops up occasionally like a Soviet sub periscope, but usually she's completely hidden. Mr. Mallard waddles over and Mrs. Mallard leaves the eggs to stand with him on the sidewalk. Drake, duck, ducklings! Make way for nomenclature.

Wearing shoes on her wrong webbed feet, my little student walks over like a drunken duckling. She wants to know why I don't have a Band-Aid on my finger any more. But she especially wants to show me the colorful Band-Aid on her own finger. And wouldn't Band-Aid Envy be a good name for a kiddie rock band?

"Oh! Oh! Another baby is popping out of my stomach!" Two kindergartners are playing Lamaze in the wooden doll house while another two are crawling around like baby kittens. It must be spring, because we all don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies.

Each morning I swallow prescription pill with large glass of water, brew coffee, pack lunch, and burn breakfast. I peer through the dark at the swimming pool mallards. The two drakes stand all self-important like old fat guys in Speedos waiting to swim laps. The females used to snooze on the pseudo-waterfall, but now they must be hiding in the tall grass like the preschool mama duck.




What is an "odd duck"? Or who? Maybe or maybe not true, but this is an entertaining answer.

Goldsby, Slosher's a slick duck

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder