First day autumn

Oxbear takes a day after travel to rest a big head cold and cough by accompanying a passel of staggered morning dental appointments the next county over...

...as Puck calls me wondering about the laundry status for his morning date with a pair of running shoes around the neighborhood...

Two hours later... two out of three A+ evaluations and a list of problems for Patience mostly related to the continuous issue of the cleft palate...

Turn around and Patience and I are immediately back in South County for an hour of Theraplay as the calendar flips over to the autumnal equinox at 1:19CST...

And home where Patience is asking for that first-trip to Ted Drewes... so we're back in South City for a cold and creamy St. Louis tradition... Yali tries a root beer concrete and Patience the s'mores specialty concrete... take a few minutes to sit on a shaded bench while the kids dig in before... “Uh oh... we gotta go...”

Blitz by Costco for a tray of lemon pepper chicken wings and a bag of kettle chips that take seven minutes too long...

“WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!!” Yali near-screeches with vitriolic vigor as we blaze back down the highway into St. Charles County for another fencing class...

He still gets in fifty-three minutes of advances and retreats... laughing at his teacher's jokes as he and a new buddy lunge foils through the air towards each other...

It's been another busy one and the kids are poking at each other and laugh-yelling about stuff so much on the drive back that Mama has to send all the windows of the minivan down and blast classical Slavic guitar from the radio which somehow weirdly calms them as we coast home through the night to a late bedtime...