While the Cat's Away - Day One

The Cat, aka The Dad (he doesn't even like cats, this whole analogy might not work...) is away for six days. I said to David, what will I do without you? He said, what you always do. Meaning, our schedule rolls on, school, work, homework, laundry, bickering, laughing, did I miss anything? I told the kids that Dad is the one who reminds me to be nice to them, and without him around, who knows what's going to happen. Maybe pizza for dinner every night. (For real. I really thought about that. Except I don't even like pizza that much, so maybe not. Maybe ramen noodles instead.)

Anyway. On my way home from work I saw approximately 147 people out walking their dogs because it was a balmy 43. I was inspired to get outside and told the kids they had to go for a walk with me. They agreed, on the condition that they would get shamrock shakes afterwards. We proceeded on our 0.8 mile walk and Eli wiped out only three times. We had dinner, went grocery shopping, found a new turtle friend (his name is Fasty because, um, he can jump really high?) and the kids were thrilled when we FINALLY picked up their shakes. Bonus - We listened to Queen on the ride home. Awe. Some.

We played a lot tonight. We fooled around and there was almost no crying and we all just spent a couple hours being silly. Everybody said lots of funny stuff and I remember almost none of it. Shelly told a story about how her class got to use tablets in the library at school today, and Mr. Librarian was very protective of these devices and asked everyone to be extra careful. "They're my babies, please be very gentle with them." Class Comedian jumps in and asks, "Did you marry a flatscreen TV?" Mr. Librarian worked very hard to hide the smile on his face but all the kids knew that he thought it was funny too.

Shelly and Elijah and I were sitting on the couch and Shelly decided she wanted to watch TV and told Little Brother to go get the remote. He immediately got the remote and brought it to her and then, without any judgement, just asked the question. "Shelly, are you just lazy or what?" Can you hear it? The honesty and the curiosity in his voice? Shelly, without missing a beat, launches into a little speech about humans and how they're just naturally lazy and that's just how people are and yes, she's lazy. Can you hear the matter of fact justification in her voice? And as she goes on, he curls into the corner of the couch and covers his face with a pillow and I hear him say, sadly now, disappointed in his sister's answer, "I just don't think that's how it should be." Hugs all around for everyone. And quit being lazy!

The Cat, The Dad, called to let us know he made it to LAX and he had a few spare minutes to chat with us before he had to head off for work stuff. I guess we're all keeping busy without each other, but I'm definitely counting down the days till the cat is home again.