Girls Night In

It started with an innocent request from my nine year old son, "Can we have a movie night tomorrow night?"

My reply, "You will be camping with Dad tomorrow night."

"Oh, yeah." Pause. "What will you and the girls be doing?"

"I don't know, something fun I hope."

Ten year old son pipes in, "Well, just don't do anything we'll get jealous of."

Me, "Why not? We're jealous that you get to go camping."

"Still, just don't do anything we'll be jealous of."

Nine year old, "Yeah, you better not have a movie night."

Conversation ends as most do at our house due to interruption by other children's pressing needs.

At the moment all I could think of was how unfair it was for the boys to get to go on a fathers and sons camp out and insist that we have no fun while they are gone. In retrospect, had they been able to voice their inner turmoil a little more eloquently, they may have said things more like this:

"Just don't rent anything that I've been dying to see and watch it without me and then return it before I get back and then never rent it again so that I never have a chance in my whole life to see whatever movie you rent which I am sure is something I've been dying to see."

or

"Don't go anywhere or do anything that I might want to be in on, cause sometimes in this family its, like, years between times when we do fun stuff and I wouldn't want to miss out on it and not get pictures of it to put in my scrapbook."


If they had said that, they might have had more sympathy from me. But getting in a sentence that long at my house is pretty hard.

So, boys, being the sensitive mom that I am I will try not to do anything you'll get too jealous of while you're gone, unless you like manicures and ice cream*. And seeing how the four of us can't really fit into our little two seater truck while you guys run off into the mountains with The Rig**, chances of us going somewhere fun are pretty slim. Still, I may pick up a movie before you guys leave, and it may be something you might want to see, but I will not return it before you get to see it (see previous sentence). I would not want to deprive you of 60+ minutes being brain dead on the family room floor. You'll probably need it after a night camping with 20 other boys and their dads.

So, rest assured, we you will not be deprived of anything too exciting while you are away camping. You will come home to a mother and siblings who are well rested and cheery and smell like nail polish remover. You will get to come home and soak in the tub and dump all your filthy clothing on the bathroom floor. You will not have to worry about washing said clothes or the ring around said bathtub when you are done. And you will get to watch whatever movie we get just to keep you from whining because you are sleep deprived. So have a great time, don't worry about us. I'm sure we'll finding something to do that's mundane and boring or super girlie so you won't feel left out.

*Boys born to our family have a defect making them dislike ice cream or large quantities of candy. More for the rest of us.

**"The Rig" is our affectionate title for our fifteen passenger van, also known as "The Beast". Think it's overkill for just eight people? We'll have to talk.