Joel and Kitty - 7:45PM
Joel cracked a smile, and side-stepped any comments about how young Kitty was to have kids. No doubt she’d heard them all, and didn’t need to hear one more parent-aged person add their two cents. “Rugrats are good at skewing focus,” he agreed. “Spent my fair share of years lowering that bar.” First with Ahna and Mina, then with Kaisha (until they found a sitter the both of them approved of). He never envied teen parents, and was grateful neither of his girls had found themselves with that kind of responsibility.
“You must have some good help though, since you showed up tonight,” he said. Maybe it was subtle, maybe it wasn’t, but it was the kind of opening he thought he’d be able to use to ask about the child care provider for the night. And he hoped it wouldn’t get back to Mariah with a negative tilt to it. “Bad enough finding someone to cover one kid, but three has to be an undertaking.” Joel offered another half-smile, memories of his older girls as toddlers and preschoolers in the back of his mind. At least Kaisha was old enough to know she needed to behave well.