Togetherness

Tonight we were watching Extreme Home Makeover. I don't know why the kids are so into this show, but we've watched it from time to time since Uncle was on it last year. Well, we're not sure if he was actually on it, but he did work on the house that was featured on an episode -- it was someone's who we went to high school with, so a lot of our old classmates worked on it, too.

Ty and the gang were sending a family on vacation to Hawaii! My oldest said, "I want to go to Hawaii!"

I answered, "Well, I'm sure that would be a lot of fun, honey, but I don't think we can do that until you guys are a little older."

"Awww, c'mon Mom!" (their standard plea).

"Boys, I just don't think I can stand being on an airplane with you for that long."

"How long does it take?"

"Well, at least twice as long as it does to get to California" (a trip we had taken in the summer of 2007, which was a two-week vacation, primarily because I knew I couldn't bear to do the trip twice in one week, and secondarily, because it would take two weeks of not sending the boys to camp and daycare to afford the costly direct-flight, convenient-time-of-day airline tickets).

Extreme Home Makeover comes on at 8 p.m. on Sunday Nights. I was fine with them staying up to watch it, since school has already been cancelled for tomorrow. I don't know how I am going to work around them. Usually by the time we finish with a weekend, I am so ready to wave "buh-bye" to the school bus. I had end-of-month work to do on Saturday morning and spent four hours working around sanctioning and separating them. "Divide and conquer" is my motto. They each ended up on a separate floor.

We have had so many snow days this year that to make up for tomorrow the kids will have to go to school on a Saturday. (Hopefully it's not a "Daddy Saturday" so I can actually enjoy the bonus "time off," which is essential for all mothers, and especially so for us single moms who have responsibility for our offspring 24x7 80-100% of the time.) The icing on the cake is that I have our dog barking at me and I have no idea what he wants. He's eaten, pooped, had treats, gone out in the side yard multiple times. Maybe he just wants attention. As does the cat, apparently.

Maybe I'll just suck it up and log a couple of work hours after the kids go to bed. Then I won't feel so stressed out about the fact that I'll be mostly working reactively tomorrow. I think I only have one or two conference calls (which necessitate my hiding after lecturing them not to interrupt me, and trying to ignore any shouting, crying, or crashing from other parts of the house, while keeping my phone on mute, just in case. But maybe not. I'm tired!