Because of how time is divided between their father and me it’s rare I’ve got the kids on anything but a school night. They’re mine on alternate Saturdays but somehow those days end up packed with cleaning, playdates and the sound of the screen door slamming over and over and over to the point that there’s really little hope for quiet family time. For the most part I’m fine with that. It was always my goal to have an open house, the kind where everyone ended up in the course of neighborhood fun, and despite the increase in tracked mud (and now, wood chips) and the inevitable strain on the pantry, I’m happy that everyone is so comfortable here.

But Friday night was a surprise. Work needed the ex so the kids stayed home; the persistence of chilly Autumn rain (in May!) meant that no one was outside and the screen door hung silent. I’d bought pizza and fully expected the evening to be spent in some combination of teevee watching, game-playing, bathing and packing up for their next-day visit to their dad’s, but as soon as my eldest stepped through the door she flung herself on the couch with a book and did not budge.

What are you reading, I asked. She tilted the cover toward me but said nothing. Don’t you have homework? And is it any good, I wondered, and from her came an impassioned torrent of praise for the book along with a plea that just this once she be allowed to hold off on her studies ’til a later date as the reading was just too engrossing.

“It’s only one worksheet,” she wheedled. “And I have all weekend to do it.”

Fair enough, I said, then went online to find out if the text was indeed suitable for someone not yet twelve. The child saw what I was doing. “You have to let me finish it!” she begged. “XXX’s mom let her!” Little did the young miss know that I’d pretty much never force her to stop reading a book once started. After checking out a summary and a few reviews I decided not only that the book was fine for her but also that I wanted it for myself. Three clicks later¹ and over I shoved her on the couch to begin what would be five straight hours engrossed together in our books and I’ve got to say it was heavenly. Heavenly! I dreamed about such nights while pregnant, before I was faced with the reality that raising children is less about the leisurely passing on of parental interests and more about cleaning up various bodily fluids which have been shot upon walls, floor and self.

All evening we read with breaks only for hygiene and² packing. I broke more than she, as I still needed to provide some limited help to the younger children — but not much. They joined in our impromptu read-a-thon with their own chunky books, sounding out the words laboriously despite the shushing inflicted upon them by their silently reading older sister, and while reading I dreamed of many more nights spent similarly engrossed as a family in the joy of reading. Finally, I thought, finally we’re getting to the point where we can do fun things without anyone falling to pieces because their schedule has been altered. Finally.

It was long past her regular bedtime when she closed her book with a thunk. “Are you almost done?” she asked.

Twenty more pages, I reported, but remember what we said an hour ago? You go to bed immediately when you’re done. It’s very late and you have a long day tomorrow, and no sooner had the words left my mouth that my lovely pre-teen lost her motherfucking shit. That tiny tiny bit of homework? That was really nothing? And could be done in a flash at any point during the long hours of weekend still left? Suddenly it grew huge; suddenly it had to be done right this very minute. Child, I said with as much patience as I could summon. It’s 10:30. You can do your homework tomorrow.

“You hate me,” she shrieked. “You don’t want me to do my homework. You want me to fail!” And on and on and on despite my efforts to get her to stop, to go to bed, to just shut up about it, efforts that went from reason to cajoling to hissed threats that if her noise woke her siblings I would bake her into a pie³.

Nothing worked. I finished my twenty pages over the sound of her exhausted weeping.

So maybe we can start doing fun stuff next year?

1. I so love my ereader! [↩]
2. superfast [↩]
3. Shamelessly stolen from I, Asshole, whom you should read right now [↩]

Out of blocks and pieces of ribbon my son has made his very own Freeze Ray with which he is even at this very moment attempting to stop my work.

I shall return just as soon as I develop a shield impervious to freeze rays.

Which I hope doesn’t take too long as I need to go pee.

Eighty-one days of sheer unadulterated terror begin in three weeks’ time, after which an oasis of calm stretches forth into the everlasting future; the three weeks being the time ’til the first child falls out of school for the summer, the eighty-one days being the length of the vacation and the everlasting future being autumn, when all of them — all of them! — will be undergoing instruction full-time.

While I know it’s very, very wrong to wish away one’s life I can’t help but hope that the days will pass more quickly¹ than they did last summer because man, last summer just about did me in. It was the whining, the whining that accompanied us on each and every adventure and which no number or magnitude of delights could sate. As the mother I should be more able to manage the whining, I think; each school break I endeavor to do better yet my efforts serve at best to stymie but by no means quash their dissatisfaction. I mean really, if my children understood concepts such as dasein or a priori or homeostasis or even extraordinary gratification they’d be nodding right along with this:

But the Infantile part of me is insatiable – in fact its whole essence or dasein or whatever lies in its a priori insatiability. In response to any environment of extraordinary gratification and pampering, the Insatiable Infant part of me will simply adjust its desires upward until it once again levels out at its homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction.

But my job is not just to provide fun. It is also to help them learn to manage expectations and to know that sometimes, a little fun is about all this life has to offer and that to ask for more is nothing but folly.

1. Not to mention easily [↩]