15 SEP 25

All three kids have already stashed themselves back in my room in the seven o'clock hour to chat through thoughts...

...before Puck splits to the treadmill in the basement... he hates running... decide it's probably not a convenient time to share how his aunt ran ten miles yesterday to prep for a half-marathon...

...while Yali and Patience hit breakfast before morning classes and a quick call from Oxbear twelve hours ahead of us... “Can I have a deli sandwich?” Yali asks me // “Sure I guess... go make yourself one before math”... he throws open the fridge to stare into its cold depths... “But what if I accidentally burn the house down?”...

Around the time Yali is on his third deli sandwich of the morning... classes have hit pause for a face painting break... Patience is now in full purple panda face... courtesy Yali... as Puck walks out to search for Leatherman multitools on my laptop where they begin arguing over “K-Pop Demon Hunters”... “That movie is garbage” Puck informs her as if it's a full fact // “Yeah!” Yali giggles... the purple panda face stares back defiantly at her oldest brother... “You have no taste!”

Classes are wrapping around the lunch hour as Yali brings out Justin... coils himself comfortably in loops around Yali's wrist... decide it's probably not the best moment to share that his other aunt “accidentally shopvac'd a copperhead” out of her basement the other evening... after her fat mean cat ended it...

After lunch the kids throw themselves out into a 96HI with pomegranate popsicles playing pirates for a few hours before Patience's online speech therapy appointment...

Then back again for more... spreading soaked “seawater” clothing across the trampoline to dry out before returning indoors for hand-packed cheeseburgers...

At six o'clock Yali and I zip over into St. Charles County for Yali's second fencing class... advances and retreats and lunges and parries and ripostes and lots of giggling in a blooming confidence...