The Aerie
Home with the kids today, Sapphire is out at a "Mothers of Multiples"
convention, her annual "get away with the girls" event. Trying this
year not to get neurotic about cleaning the house while she's away.
Many years I've tried to get the whole house clean "for her" while
she's away: in fact, I've usually just tried to get it clean to prove
to myself I can do it. But it always leaves me crabby and frustrated
come Monday when I feel like I've done nothing but work all weekend.
Well, recently a lot of people have been telling me "be more
selfish." They tell me I should spend less time working and more time
enjoying myself. Sapphire, Fairy, Tom, all of them have said the same
thing. So this year I'm trying it. I'm still doing a little
cleaning, but I'm not knocking myself out about it. I read a book,
took a bath, even played Monopoly with the kids... and lost!
Yep, their first game of Monopoly, and the eight-year-old twins opened
up a can of whup-ass on their father. First Golddew grabs the three
green properties just past the Jail and immediately starts churning
houses out. Then L manages to grab both Park Place and Boardwalk,
and mortgages himself to the hilt to get a pair of operational
hotels. Meanwhile I had diddly! Very shortly, Golddew rolled a 10
off Marvin Gardens and BLAM, lands on the $2000 Boardwalk with exactly
$1800 of assets. I resigned, since at that point I had about $50
myself, having landed on her hotel a turn earlier..
Then since he'd played alone so patiently while the three of us were
playing Monopoly, I played "wrestling" with D, my
five-year-old. Wrestling used to be just that, wrestling, tickling,
etc. Unfortunately he's developed his sister's old habit of directing
play down to the last detail. He spends most of his time bouncing
(literally) around the room while explaining exactly who each of us
are, what we're supposed to do and say, and what we do and say after
that. I usually have to just grab him and start wrestling with him to
get him to stop.
The weather was cool but lovely today, with bright sunshine. The kids
played outside till almost nine p.m. and I wasn't going to try to stop
them -- usually we have to throw them out of the house.
So one idle weekend day passed, let's see what tomorrow brings.
Posted by Albatross at April 30, 2000 12:00 AM