Weekend at Home

In our family, we have very different ideas about how to spend our weekends. Science Girl likes to be at home. She enjoys doing household tasks like gardening or reorganizing the pantry. She likes to get up early on a weekend morning, dabble in her projects, run errands, and then fall into a deep sleep for the afternoon while the boys run amok. Secret Service and Sport don’t mind staying home and hanging around the house, either. Secret Service likes to go outside, turn on the hose, and watch the water run. Since he’s got the water on, I tried to get him to wash the cars or water the flowers, but he’s not interested in that. Maybe he is soothed by the sound of running water but then again, he isn’t paying the water bill. Another of his favorite pastimes is to patrol the neighborhood holding an air gun, alert to any sign of wasp nests. When he finds one, he attempts to shoot it down. I’m not sure what success he’s had but he hasn’t been stung yet, so that’s a plus. Meanwhile, Sport and his next door buddy enjoy doing experiments in the front yard. Recently, they proudly announced that they’d made paint from scratch and sure enough there was a white paint-like splatter on the lawn, sidewalk and Sports’ shoes. Sport also likes to gather all of our pillows, couch cushions, sheets and blankets to build a fort. This also involves turning many of the chairs over as they serve to stabilize the structure. It’s all fun and games until someone is unreasonable and wants to sit in a chair or have a blanket on their bed.

These aren’t my ideas of a good time. On the weekends, I like to get out of the house. I like to see friends and go places. But, as everyone learned in kindergarten, you have to take turns. So, this weekend I yielded to what the others wanted to do and we were home a lot. I made efforts to break up the monotony by offering to take the boys to buy a few new clothes for the start of the school year or to swim in one of our neighborhood pools. They declined.

Science Girl happily puttered around. She pulled a lot of weeds from the flower beds, made a trip to Mecca, I mean, Home Depot, watched a pre-season football game on TV, took an afternoon nap. She was following her bliss. On Sunday afternoon, she invited the boys to help her install shelves in the garage.

Now, as I want to educate and illuminate the boys about travel and the arts, Science Girl wants to teach them how to care for their future homes. When I passed through the garage, Secret Service was standing on a tall ladder, using a battery powered drill. Sport, waiting patiently for his turn, was on a scooter, winding and turning one way and another through the lawn tools, bicycles and athletic equipment strewn around the garage. Another time, Sport was on a ladder, requesting a power tool and Secret Service was measuring something.

Home maintenance must make you hungry. All day, the boys trooped in and out of the kitchen, scavenging for food. I felt like I was living the children’s book, The Hungry Caterpillar (1 gogurt, 7 glasses of lemonade, 11 tangerines, 23 pretzel nuggets). It was easy to see what they’d eaten because they’d left all the wrappers and empty glasses on the counter. I had been to the grocery store earlier, but they cleaned me out. (Another reason to take the family out for the day – when you come home all your food is still there.)

When it was time for dinner, they all trooped in from the garage. The boys said they were starved. “How do the shelves look?” I asked.

“We couldn’t get it to work,” Science Girl said sadly. “We’ll have to try again next weekend.”

As I brought the food to the table, I thought I heard water running outside. Before I could ask Secret Service if he'd left the water on, he asked how he was supposed to eat if he had no chair. Sport said the fort would fall if we removed a chair, Science Girl was reading her directions from the shelves to figure out where they'd gone wrong. I started a new grocery list.