Journal, Day 63

The homestead has become completely overrun with the touches of youth: singular socks, supplies for education, and random electrical cords belonging to advanced devices. A ceramic tooth cleaning container, the second of its kind, was broken yet again by the elder male, the shards left intact and preserved for another to find and remove. It is inwardly driving the benefactor to a slow insanity, but joy at their presence prevents full incapacity.
 
The youngest children were afforded extra time in the morning, so they spent it watching the alien doctor fighting an alien robot, which kept them quiet and satisfied. Walking around as if in a trance, the elder children slowly gathered their belongings and lunch pails to meander to school, leaving a trail of bread crumbs and various objects in their wake.
 
The benefactor took the youngest children with her as she prepared to enlist them in activities of physical movement.  Sitting in line for an hour felt like twenty years, as there were three young girls in front of the benefactor, blasting the world’s most annoying moving picture song on repeat from their talking device. It felt like proper torture, and the younger children, unburdened of having to sit in line, smartly disappeared to play in another room.
 
After registration, the benefactor and children made their way to her employment, where they argued and whined for over an hour straight as the benefactor attempted to accomplish something outside of correcting behavior over and over and over and over and over and over. The youngest female then engaged her brother in a contest of physical wills over a futuristic toy sword, ending in broken disaster and crying. It finally reached a pinnacle when the benefactor forced them to settle themselves and take a nap, where they curled up together and finally fell into sweet, silent, if short, repose.
 
In the afternoon, the benefactor and children ventured to meet their school marms for the new educational season beginning tomorrow. Supplies were handed in, and desks were chosen. Behavior was kept in check by the dangling promise of freely distributed cookies on departure.
Returning once again to the benefactor’s employment for a forum, the children slowly began to lose their composure. At one point, sobbing erupted while arguing over who was the boss of who, the answer to which, of course, is NO ONE.
 
At the end of the day, baths completed, vittles procured for lunch, and the evening repast served, the children were tucked in with delicate care before whisked away to sleep, and the benefactor’s sanity restored.