I woke up and sat down at my computer as I always do.
I got caught up on my blogs and social media and really wasn't paying a lick of attention to anything around me.
Badger wakes up about an hour after me.
She goes, “Look what Daddy dragged in from work.”
I'm like, “Where?” and she goes, “How could you miss a giant green toy box?”
Easy, apparently.
Cowboy found a toy box in the trash at work and brought it home for Vier.
After he woke up, we opened it, and it was full of perfectly clean girls' toys, mostly dolls.
That's a mystery.
I sure hope one of the employees hadn't just set it by the trash until his shift was over.
I'd feel bad if Cowboy accidentally stole some kids’ toys.
The morning moved on.
Eventually, Badger went to the she-shed to work on something.
She’s currently into woodworking.
I went and sat on the swing and just enjoyed the quiet while I could.
I felt a bit naked without my tablet.
If I'm outside, I almost always have a book in hand.
My books are on my tablet nowadays.
But Cowboy was still sleeping, and the tablet was in the bedroom.
About noon, it started thundering, and the heavens opened, and the rain came down.
Badger and I had to scurry into the house.
Cowboy was awake by then, so he and I went through the toy chest, and then I headed to my bedroom to read.
It's a really long book, and if I don’t get it read, they'll take away my other loans soon without me getting to read the books.
The storm didn't last very long.
Just long enough to make it a little hotter outside.
Badger headed back outside, and I headed to my computer for a bit.
Raven and the children landed on us just a little after 2:30 p.m.
Luckily, as is the usual pattern for them, the first day back here they're always on their best behavior.
So today hasn't been terrible.
There have been a few bumps, like Raven not watching them and expecting me or Cowboy to.
I refuse.
I'm sorry, but unless I was giving birth, I never had anyone to watch my kids, and I won’t watch the grandkids.
That's the parents’ job.
Cowboy has jobs he wants to do outside and no time to keep an eye on a bunch of kids who, frankly, will not mind.
Eins and Drei kept tromping in the garden.
Pappaw hollered for them to get out, and Eins put his hands on his hips and said, “This is my daddy’s, and I can do what I want.”
Raven does have a very small box garden at the edge of the big garden, but they were in the big garden.
That’s when Cowboy gritted his teeth and headed toward Eins, and I thought it best to go get Raven.
Cowboy still has a few primitive ideas about what to do with sassy kids.
I know that the other parent lives on or next to a busy highway.
If she’s like Raven, she just lets the kids outside without supervision.
That’s not going to end well.
Even down here, it's not safe to let a kid out without watching them.
We have speed‑demon neighbors and an active railroad track.
Raven had a sick spell, throwing up and dizzy.
I don't know what that was about; I went outside and got Cowboy.
He's the nurturer; I'm the iceberg.
Luckily, that didn't last long.
The kids kept leaving my door open while the air conditioner was running.
Raven seemed annoyed when I asked him to keep that door shut.
I don’t care what they do at the other parent’s house; this is my house.
Mostly they watched TV, which brought another problem.
Cowboy has shows he watches faithfully on Saturday, and those kids absolutely won't let anyone else watch TV.
Around 10 p.m. I noticed that Eins and Drei were still in the living room blasting cartoons.
I went to Raven's room.
He was playing his games, and Zwei and Vier were asleep.
I said, “You need to let your dad have the TV.”
He goes, “Well, I told them to come to bed. I can't do anything.”
I gave a good snort, went in my bedroom, and slammed the door.
I managed to bite my tongue and not say what I wanted to.
I kept an eye on the living room by camera.
Cowboy looked pretty sad, and then he wandered off to the bathroom, probably for some quiet away from blaring cartoons.
As it happened, Eins and Drei were fighting, I mean, loud yelling.
I went in.
I told them I was going to bust their rear ends if they didn’t get their rear ends in there with their daddy.
I was sick of the fighting, and it was time for Pappaw to get the TV.
Buddy, they hauled butt into Raven's room, and I slammed the door rather loudly.
Hmph, seems like an actual adult can do something.
No I wouldn't have busted their butts, but the threat sure worked.
Apparently very fat, very grumpy, slightly hateful old women are scary.
Or I'm just unpredictable and they're not willing to test me.
I know this is a helter-skelter, very disjointed post.
You get what you get, though.
Again, it hasn't been a terrible day; the kids are always very subdued the first day they come back, then the misbehavior escalates.
Badger and I kept ourselves outside for the majority of the day.
It beats being stuck in the bedroom.
Cowboy has been outside most of the evening.
The neighbors are going to start wondering about us.
He put two more solar security lights on the support posts at either end of the she-shed to light up the dark path behind it.
He also mounted one on the fence, hoping it would light up the she-shed door.
Then he put three more on the support posts of Heron's add-on room.
At this point they're motion-activated, and if anyone walks through the yard, it lights up like an airport.
I almost pity the raccoon, almost.
I believe he’s too low to the ground to trigger them, though, and the same goes for the stray cats.
I made hotdogs for supper.
Badger and I ate, and everyone else was glued to the TV.
We clearly told Raven, the adult responsible for feeding his kids, that supper was done.
Cowboy ate.
I went in later to put the food away and noticed nothing was really gone.
So Raven didn’t eat, he’d brought a pizza down for Zwei, since he said he wouldn’t eat hotdogs.
Apparently all four kids ended up eating the pizza, not just Zwei.
I had figured the other three would eat the hotdogs.
He couldn’t have said something before I cooked 20 hot dogs?
Now we’re going to have to figure out what to do with that many hot dogs.
So yeah the post isn't very linear, and probably doesn't make sense, but here we are.
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