Our Weekend Without Daddy

Steve went on a guys' weekend to the beach, so the kids and I were home alone. Steve has spent many, many weekends over the past seven years taking care of the kids while I've been away on women's retreats, girls' weekends, and family events; but unbelievably, I have never spent a weekend with the kids all by myself. (I know.)

The kids and I had good times. On Friday evening, we got together with the other families whose dads were on the beach trip and let everyone pig out on pizza and race around the yard playing. It was a beautiful evening in the Carolinas and perfect for outdoor play.

The rest of the weekend was a different story: cold and rainy. Indoor activities only! In desperation, I took the kids to the mall. (Be silent. Take it in. I took the kids to the mall.) I don't know what it is about those places, but malls are unparallelled for bringing out my children's inner hyenas. I'm really not a "mall person" to start with, and over the years I have learned my lesson the hard way about taking kids there. The boys cannot take two steps unaccompanied by extreme horseplay. Libby wants in the stroller. No, out of the stroller. No, in the stroller. No... Everyone is suddenly hungry. And thirsty. And has to go to the bathroom. Adam is drawn to the stroller hood like a cat to catnip. updownupdownupdownupdown. Andrew insists that yes, we really CAN ride the escalator with the stroller. And he really sticks to his guns, determined to argue his point to the death (or to my admission to the asylum, which is surely not far off). All this while we're surrounded by the hundreds of other people who have brought their children to the mall to get out of the rain. But, as I said, I was desperate. I had to return a couple dresses -- which, ironically, I'd been putting off for almost a month until I could find time to do it without the kids. And I did manage to accomplish that -- just as Adam leaned into a rack of clothes only to find that *shock* a bunch of hanging sweaters could not support the weight of a small rambunctious boy. At that point I fled the mall with my gang of hyenas, clutching my return receipt and the shreds of my dignity.

Everything else was pretty uneventful after that. There was a trip to the McDonald's with the really fun playplace. Confirmation that Andrew has inherited my tendency to carsickness if I read in the car. Family game night. Further confirmation that Mommy Brain has killed off a lot of brain cells when I had to tell the kids that we would have to wait for Daddy to get home to read the Yahtzee instructions because they were just too confusing for me. Church.

All in all, we had a pretty good time, just the kids and I. But we were all super-excited to see Steve walk in the door this afternoon.

Now maybe we can play Yahtzee.