Give in to it

Here, use this to do something nice for yourself.

Pardon my irregularity.

I suppose I have had time to do this since Thursday, but I have been in a sort of psychological hibernation these past few days, spending my time and energy on the family or on non-public projects. We had a movie night Friday - watched Robots. Z was glad for a kids' movie. It was much more clever and charming than I expected.

Saturday, I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. Whee! Z's wrist was still hurting and she was exhausted so we stayed home from orchestra, then I spent the day catching up on reading and writing stuff, and all of us went to opening night of the latest Noel Coward at the Hanna Theater. The children held up well. I did not. I have become an old lady who falls asleep during movies and plays. With the up at 3 a.m. and reading on the couch thing, too, I feel like I have become my mother. There are worse people to be.

Sunday was sleeping in and domesticity -- In the morning, we had an impromptu family meeting about screen time. I am sick of the constant negotiations about video games. I suggested we make tickets good for certain amounts of time, and each person has so many during the week. The kids immediately jumped on it. Z suggested 6 tickets (good for 20 minutes video game or 1 half hour tv show) per week. We added a ticket for screen time with a friend and a wild card ticket that can be used in a variety of ways. After breakfast they immediately set about making the tickets. I was very proud of all of us. Then writing and menu planning and staying up too late to watch the Oscars. I can't really explain why the Oscars compel me so much -- all sorts of things to critique about the whole enterprise -- and yet they do.

So it was an active weekend, but felt to me like an insular one. I really have no interest in talking to anyone outside the family. David's tour is in full swing, and we are all just tired and in need of each other. I can't explain exactly what is so exhausting about this time of year. And I think about being a single parent or a parent who has a partner who travels all the time or works long hours doing something intense or what have you, and I think, why is this such a big deal to me? But it is. What is good is that after many years of this I have finally learned how to give in to it and care for myself better. This weekend's mode is the result of that.

That's my motto for the week: Give into it and care for myself better.

Reading: I read a lot of 10-minute plays this weekend. It is distressing to me how many women choose to write about a. fighting over a man or b. bitter recriminations between mother and daughter (which often seem to involve something about a man too). I mean, yes, these things are part of life and will and should be written about, I suppose, but can we at least have some attempt to pass the Bechdel test, ladies?

Writing: Still at work on a non ToT project, but I am eager to get back to my neglected characters. More this week.

Dinner: Friday: Rigatoni Toni (mini rigatoni noodles with mushroom, olives, artichoke hearts, garbanzos, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, parm), and a green salad. The kids eagerly, helped cook. It was sweet. And, boy, does O love dressed lettuce. Saturday: box macncheese. Sunday: Rigatoni Toni repurposed - tossed with spaghetti sauce, topped with cheese and baked - individual side dishes of whatever leftovers needed to be eaten up (mine was slices of orange left over from lunchboxes).

Soundtrack: Man, Shirley Bassey brought it the Oscars! That was amazing.

Also, I realize I have totally stumbled on the February love song play list. I will give you some love songs this week this week, but not today.

Random thing: O said to me, "I have so many Lego weapons, I have more weapons than guys to give them to. Even if I combine them into really big weapons, I still don't have enough guys for all of them." Yeah.