Journal, Day 219

Much has changed since the last entry. We enjoy the younger children’s company less, much to our dismay, but it cannot be helped. Despite such upheaval, life has been the same, plodding on. This week, the elder female spent extra time with the benefactor, due to needing extra medical attention. She was so enthused to spend time at her employment that she demonstrated her fervor by melting into her chair while listening to music, generally avoiding the benefactor, per usual.
 
The elder children have been contemplating their future, and spent an evening with the benefactor and the hound, mapping out their prospects. It started with the elder male, who plopped himself on the mattress in the benefactor’s boudoir, later joined by his female twin. He is excited to have many options and programs to choose from, while the elder female has decided to travel to Botswana to observe the foreign culture and learn about the conservation of animals, which is very exciting.

Meanwhile, the younger children are acclimating to their reduced time, trying to regain a sense of rhythm and structure that has since been lost. It has exhausted the younger female, who after being put to sleep the other evening, attempted to journey after waking, only to fall asleep on the floor of her bedroom, folded like a towel.
 
Much of this transition seems to have also affected the mutt, who appears more lonely and needy than usual, cuddling up with the elder female at every opportunity she can grab, or stealing into any empty lap where she might lie her head. The younger male has become more protective of his canine pal, as he demonstrated when the elder children were teasing her by yelling, “Don’t touch a morsel on this dog’s hair,” which sent everyone into peels of laughter. Per usual, she sleeps in the empty beds of the younger children when they are not home.
 

The benefactor discovered that the younger male’s attention is in demand at his ballet studio. One girl frequently stops to talk to him, eyelashes fluttering, sending him into a tizzy where he now ‘disappears’ when he sees her approaching. As he has told the benefactor many a time, he is just not ready for that type of commitment, yet. That seemed reasonable to the benefactor, more so than his insistence on wearing his tighter dance pants, to give his ‘little man’ more freedom, as it seems the opposite would be true. Shortly thereafter, we discovered he was actually wearing his younger sibling’s pants, and a hasty change of clothes was required, as was much laughter.
 
Despite such a week of chaos, the benefactor is thankful that the sun still shines, the moon still rises, and she still gets to spend precious time with her four, gorgeous hearts.