12 FEB 26

We're in the eight o'clock hour prepping proper and improper fractions while Patience is already busy wondering how there's crafting glitter in her breakfast rice...

We sift out a few hours of classes together before I grab a quick errand run...

Return about twenty minutes later realizing someone has set the thermostat to 81... there's a fake-blood handprint pressed menacingly onto a board leaned up against the living room wall... my hand soap dispenser from the kitchen sink is missing... and Joe is holding an ice pack over his eye... “Why Yali?” // “Because I was giving Patience a high five and for some reason her foot was in the way and she kicked me in the eye”...

So... as the welt calms some... Patience and I slice south for Patience's next babysitting gig...

Little A is sitting on the couch perusing a Mickey Mouse comic book in German eagerly waiting for her playdate to arrive... and for the next two hours she and Patience are very busy drawing pink dinosaurs and snacking on homemade chocolate covered strawberries...

At some point they pause to visit the chickens in the backyard as Patience worries that they might be attempting flight into the neighbor's yard... Little A then shares with us somewhat solemnly that... “Yesterday the chickens were going to someone else's house!”...

Then some digging in the dirt after which Little A wears her dirt-stained socks on her hands before chewing on them to make us laugh... and there are some tears when it's time for Patience to leave because they were just having too much fun...

Evening sends some to Irish dance and some to fencing and the dog to apparently using the empty house for a full food prowl... shredding bread packaging and tin foil all across the living room floor...

Meanwhile Puck's cat is so annoyed with us for apparently removing his boy from his presence that he snubs us a visit upstairs that evening to air his usual grievances in the form of perpetual head-butting...