12 NOV 25

“PATIENCE! I'm gonna make BUTTERFLIES lay EGGS in your NOSE!”...

Because my hands are busy packing croissant breakfast sandwiches and my brain is split thirteen ways... I fail to learn what inspired this particular portentous promise but similar to most circumstances around here... the altercation is shortly forgotten...

...and Patience and I are zooming over to another volunteer hour as she parades out her dozens of questions to me... this time generally a hard focus on the topic of souls and eternity...

After lunch Yali runs out the door waving a machete in the air... possibly some accompanying cries of war... but some minutes later he throws himself back through the door... “MOM! COME CHECK OUT THE TREE I CUT UP!”...

Fortunately for everyone... he has chosen the very dead oak in the yard and not one of only two remaining alive and sort-of-alive botanicals still hosting foliage...

Panels of disintegrating bark lie shattered across the yard exploding with ladybugs... their den has been disturbed by Yali's flying blade and they do not seem totally pleased with this set of events... “It's okay... they can go back in there...” Yali explains away his light sense of guilt over wrecking at least a few wings of their winter home...

However he is successfully able to later apply this blade-wielding energy during his Scouts den meeting that evening in knife safety class...

Meanwhile big brother wanders out looking for evening snacks and decides that a box of large and very uncooked tube pasta looks promisingly tasty... **crunch crunch crunch**... digs back in the box for another one...