29 SEP 25

Patience is busy cutting white cheddar cheese with a pocket knife in the kitchen before sitting down to class...

...while Yali wearing his Harry Potter robes turned inside-out is carefully popping 3D-printed claws onto each of his fingers... then something about face paint halfway through Creative Writing...

...and Patience gets busy analyzing bar graphs of sandwiches in Math...

…“Yali... you're supposed to be writing the next sentence... not tracing Nutter Butters on your notebook paper...”

Somewhere between Puck successfully testing out his new running shoes and Yali and Patience repeatedly screaming and laughing while running around the inside of the house after lunch and another violin lesson for Patience which prompts extensive symbolic tomato-throwing from biggest brother which is also Patience's favorite kind of audience and Yali spray-painting a pair of my old maroon sneakers for another costume...

...Mama finds a few minutes to read about quantum foam and catch a video recipe for homemade jasmine rice bread...

Before six o'clock Yali and I are coasting back to fencing class... the young chap dozing in a wash of late red sunlight... up till nearly midnight Calvin & Hobbes style... blanket fort stealth LEGOS by keychain flashlight...

An hour later he and his fencing buddy are laughing together windmilling their foils at each other in chaotic swordplay during “free fence”...

Kids asleep for the night... Puck wanders out looking for snacks... grabs a box of uncooked lasagna noodles... munch munch munch... Aunt Onion would be proud...