Planning For Sunday

Today I was determined to not leave the house for anything. I have a sudden fascination for football (which has us all a little puzzled) and I was determined to finish all of my homework today so tomorrow would be free for nothing but game-watching. In order to make this happen, a boycott of driving kids around had to be enacted.

And that did not make me a popular mom.

Unhappy Child #1: Upset before noon because I wouldn't take him here or there.
Unhappy Child #2: Upset after noon because I wouldn't take him here or there.
Unhappy Child #3: Upset all day because I wouldn't take her anywhere.

Now I know those kids like to run around. They have friends; they have a life. Usually I don't mind driving them around within reason. I have a life, too... well, what's left of it anyway. And my life today was not going to include traffic lights and mall parking lots.

What it did include was one paper on the Cold War and another on the Byzantine Empire. In between those were about three loads of laundry, two cups of coffee, and one Lean Cuisine. I deprived myself of fun things like Facebook and ignored my newest library book (Ted Dekker... one of my favorite authors... not easy to resist!). And I refereed about a zillion mini-throwdowns between three aggravated teenagers.

Do I make my kids sound rotten? I really don't mean to. I know I've got it made with those three. They're siblings, though. They like to push each other's buttons, and let's face it... they like to push mine, too. Okay, okay. Sometimes I like to push right back. When they started arguing over who would move out first and who would have their own room, though, I just sat back and listened. I will miss that one day.

Then they started arguing over who will take the cat. Well, actually it was just two of them arguing over the cat. The cat. The cat that nobody wants to clean up after, but everybody wants to give a treat.

The cat will stay with the one who cleans out his litter box.
And that would be me.
End of discussion.

In the end, I finished both papers in time to fix supper. One boy seized the opportunity to escape with his girlfriend and the other two eventually got over it. I planned my grocery list for tomorrow's tailgating type of menu and read a couple of chapters in my book. Now I'm thinking the best way to end this not-going-anywhere day will be an early bedtime.

I've got a lot of football to watch tomorrow.