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I began putting the sandwich making away as the two girls danced around impatiently while Aran eagerly talked to his mom about Grandpa werewolf and the room full of weapons. Gleefully giving his sisters a evil grin since they had to wait until he was done talking for them to have their turn. Before he finally took off at a quick walk to escape their whispered demands for him to hurry up, even as their efforts turned into tugging on his arms.

As I was finishing up I could hear this turning into yelling and whining in the distance, so I shouted. “Take turns, finish up and pass on the phone Aran, you’ll get another shot at it after the other two get theirs!”

There, settled. Oh, the boy didn’t finish his sandwich. Dibs.

So, even with express shipping I had no TV until sometime tomorrow, and with three kids, but only one computer and a single laptop, I didn’t want to deal with the whining and tantrums over who got time to do stuff online.

Getting upset...Ami!

I caught up with them to see her sitting on the floor taking deep breaths while Sara, who was standing in from of Aran protectively, was looking down at her sister with a curious expression.

As I crept up on Aran and gave a gentle tug on the phone that I could hear my daughter in law yelling from, he let go of it absent mindedly while trying to look around his oldest sister in order to try to figure out what the other one was doing.

“Hi Yuki! Ami starting loosing it.” I looked around. “But she dropped down and starting using the secret teaching of the Lathe family to calm her troubled soul, no damage and no one is hurt, so I’m going to pass the phone to her since I’m pretty sure talking to her mom will do the same thing. Bye Yuki!”

Hey, I know a Yuki now, that’s almost as cool as a Alphonso.

I picked up Ami’s hand and slapped the phone into it, she opened her eyes looking a little started, the girl must have been deep into it, before putting it to her ear and tearing up. “...Mom?”

Sigh, girls...guess I had to get use to people crying for no reason again.

I picked my granddaughter off the floor, with only a mild look of surprise and protest from her, and plopped her down on my mom’s big blue padded chair I had put in the hall to keep it from getting worn out from frequent use, and for a lack of a better place to put it.

Then I began pushing the other two back toward the kitchen. “She’s going to need a moment without you two staring at her and she knows where to find us when she’s done. Don’t worry the phone has a good charge, even a teenage girl isn’t going to wear the battery down all by herself.”

Oh yeah, “Ami, your parents are about to eat, so make sure Sara gets a chance to talk to you mom before she has to go.”

The girl looked up with a surprised look but nodded before beginning to rapidly fill in her mom on her last few days.”

I got the kids back into the kitchen, picked up the boy and tossed him onto the chaise lounge before going over to grab the last few things from the counter. Sara began to load up the dishwasher wordlessly while I finished and wet down a dish towel to wipe off the counter.

“What are you doing? You’re just pushing everything onto the floor?” The girl protested while shoving at me to get me out of the way before she went looking for a broom.

“There wasn’t that much, I only need to sweep up about once a week. Over in the narrow cabinet next to the pantry door.” I pointed over at the broom closet.

She made a “hrumf” sound at me before cleaning up, just finishing up as Ami came into the room, told her mom “Here’s Sara” and passed on the phone.

The eldest took the phone and began carrying on a whispered conversation with her other hand covering her mouth and moving off out of earshot down the hall but still in clear sight of her sibling.

Then started talking in what I assume was Japanese, so what was the whole secret squirrel bit? I don’t speak Japanese. I glance over at the other two kids, oh right. The whispering and covering her mouth is not necessarily about keeping secrets from me.

“So, we got a afternoon to kill, so I'm going to teach you some card games. At least until Aran conks out, and then you two get online time until he wakes up. Then one of you has to give the computer or laptop up so he gets a turn.”

They thought this over until I whispered to Ami “This is when you call “Not it””

She grinned “Not it!”

Sara wandered in and handed the phone to Aran. “What, did I miss something, what going on?”

Ami explained, Sara glared at me. “Not fair, and you can’t go and make up stuff like secret techniques, mom is...is kinda sheltered, she was asking questions about it.”

Really? I took a seat and set my finger tips together. “Those who question the secret of the Lathe family are unworthy of them. Be careful what you question Padawan.”

Oh, the look on her face, she isn’t sure if she should believe me or not. Then miss goody two shoes Ami had to spoil it. “He really does have a meditation technique, it’s different from what mom taught us and it works, he said it helped him keep his temper so it should help you too.”

That go her a dark look from her sister, and a curious one directed at me.

I shrugged. “The two of use should have some time this afternoon. Can’t hurt.”

What the heck, it’s just a way to distract yourself from getting upset, nothing major.

I took the three of them to the game room and broke out the dominoes, I figured it was more Aran’s speed. Two games in and he started to tucker out, but he still started to put up a fight when I tried to get him to go take a nap in the bunk room. We compromised on him lying down for a while on the couch and he dozed off by the time we finished a third, faster, game.

“Okay, I got a computer in my office, stay out of my files, and a old laptop. You should be able to get wifi anywhere in the house, username batman, password, time is the fire, all lower caps, no spaces. I’ll unlock the computers. Don’t check your emails, don’t log into anything, just surf around or watch a show or something.”

The two online addict nearly raced me to the office, hope the boy isn’t too upset when he wakes up alone.