Monday before Thanksgiving

3D printer cooking by 7:30, five wizard’s wands and a balloon dog creature… Patience sitting on my bed crafting beaded friendship bracelets while Oxbear takes a call with the UK
Yali and Patience fighting through math…
fighting through writing…
fighting through spelling…
exiled outdoors in the cold gray wind… where they begin digging up the yard with a pick-axe looking for “treasure” that Yali buried in a plastic container years ago… he just can’t remember where he buried it

Puck returns from the gym and starts grumping about the fridge being out of cow’s milk… he brings along an eager Patience to Schnucks for a cold gallon
For lunch, pans of leftover chicken from the smoker… so good… as Yali’s and Patience’s obsession with “Harry Potter” films continues
Yali and Patience back into the chilled wind… the holes in the yard are multiplying
Yali and Patience giggling through Colombian culture class…
Yali tearing around the house with armloads of plush animals all involved in intense battle while Patience sits at my desk for online speech therapy

As it starts to get dark, Yali buries himself in canvases and bottles of brightly colored paint, full inspiration
After Patience concludes another violin lesson with Mama, Oxbear brings her to Starbucks for a “pink drink” bought off her Greenlight debit card… she also thoughtfully buys me a chocolate cake pop
And “The Great America Baking Show” holiday special for Patience, wearing her new flared leggings (because that’s what the Gen Alpha girls like these days), already stained with paint
Around nine o’clock, both upstairs toilets decide to begin simultaneously leaking into the basement…