Memorial Day Weekend for my husband: (every year)
Friday: Buy beer, build a contraption to keep rain off when canoe-ing.
Saturday AM: Load canoe, tin boat, life vests, beer and beef jerky in to truck. Wait for friends to meet up. Drive to the Saco. Put beef jerky, life vests and beer IN to boats. Get in boats. Float.
Saturday" Drink and float. Eat some jerky.
Sunday: Drink and float. Paddle a few miles. Load out empty beer cans and boats. Realize you've lost 1 paddle, 1 life vest, 1 cell phone and 1 ipod. Drive Home.
Memorial Day Weekend for Me: (every year)
Friday: Kids get home from school. Do a billion loads of laundry. Put manure on garden and soak it. Till two more gardens. Work. Cook. Clean. Call all the parents about Saturday. Find 1) the camping grill 2) the tent and 3) the propane in the basement, all of which are EXACTLY where you said they were. give them to husband. Don't punch husband.
Saturday: Drop toddler at a friends. Pick up three teens, for a total of four. Drive them to Short Sands Beach in Maine for my teens birthday. Dole out arcade money for kids who didn't bring any. Set teens loose. Find a cafe. Eat a REAL SANDWHICH! WITH BASIL AND MOZARELLA! Feed NONE to a dog or toddler. Drink coffee, without having to hide it from a caffeine fiend two year old. Read a book. Decide this is SO WORTH any money spent.
Gather teens, spend some time talking and walking with each one.
Drop all teens at my house.
Pick up toddler. Spend half an hour chatting with awesome friends who babysit about other awesome friends who are dying.
Drive home. Find that teens have gotten out the water balloons and squirt gun cannons. Dump toddler in the middle of the melee, and call it bath time.
Put toddler to bed.
Send two teens home, chat with both and their parents. Send son home with last teen, bless teens parents for taking your kid.
Put toddler to bed.
Realize you are, for all intents and purposes, ALONE.
Put on your favorite music that everyone else in the house hates. Crack a HUGE bottle of mead. Drink, laugh, and sing really loud off key, while dancing.
Finish mead. Find another. Repeat.
Realize it's nearing 2 Am and you have to squint at the computer. Go to bed, laughing and singing.
SUNDAY:
Wake up to toddler yelling MOM MOM MOM MOOOOM MOM MOM! Realize you have the mother of all hangovers. Decide it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. Shower, dress, eat, guzzle coffee, clean house, do some laundry. Discover forgotten gatorade in fridge. Do happy dance.
Around noon, get teen back. Immediately send to showers, he smells that bad.
Once he's clean, load car with toys, juice, snacks and chairs. Load toddler and teen. Pick up niece (Or, teen 2, as I call her). Drive to friends house for BBQ. Turn all children loosee on big lawns with lots of toys and people for the teens to talk to, and one exceptionally forgiving dog for toddler to chase. Sit in chair for five hours. Don't move much. Talk to people a bit. Find self coloring in a Hello Kitty coloring book, thoroughly content, discussing Crayola shades with woman next to you, whom you don't know. No kids are involved in this coloring. Notice your back and shoulder feel weird. Realize it's because you're relaxed, and that's a new sensation.
Milk. It.
Watch toddler curl up with new dog, using dog for pillow, drinking his sippy cup. Realize it's bed time.
Load everything we came with. Say goodbye. Drop off niece. Go grocery shopping. Put toddler to bed. Put away groceries. Make a loaf of bread. Feed teen. Work on inventory for a couple hours. Do some laundry and dishes. Spend two hours cleaning bedroom and switching winter for summer wardrobe. Realize it's midnight. Go to bed.
Spend from 1 am to 2am up with toddler who had a bad dream.
7.30AM: Get up. Feed dog, scrub kitchen, feed children, do dishes and more laundry. Call mother. Spend half an hour talking about friend who is dying. Realize you're going to loose it any second. Put toddler down for nap, leave teen in charge. Drive aimlessly for half an hour singing and crying with radio. Get a coffee so you have an excuse for having been gone. Go home.
Give teen chores. spend more time supervising chores than you would have spent doing them yourself.
Convince teen to help you in garden. Head outside. Have landlady and toddler both decide to come outside right then. And help.
Manage to get garden half planted, while teen strings bamboo and twine for a fence. Call it good.
Have husband come home sunburnt and ... um.. sunburnt. ;)
Go buy frozen pizzas, cause you don't feel like cooking.
Sit on patio for three hours with landlady and surprise guest Pete, drinking beer and talking.
Pass out.
Repeat next year.
