Reprieve

Thing are kind of hectic around here.  I mean, things are always kind of hectic, but it's a particularly busy month.  I have a case that is filing at the end of the month and so my days have been long, my evenings longer, and my brain is full of expert reports, witness affidavits, legal claims, ballistics testing, etc.  It's hard to decompress and even harder to de-tangle because there's no real end to the day.  There's just breaks to sleep.  And then it starts again.   

I try my best to be as present as possible with the kids, but this last six week push at the end of a filing always means that they watch a little more tv, play a lot more with each other, and are more responsible for entertaining themselves.  I thought I was doing a pretty good job of making it all work but out of nowhere at dinner the other night Norah burst into tears and sobbed for a solid five minutes.  When I got her to tell me what the problem was all she could say was, "you work too much."  Knife.to.the.heart.  I asked her what I could do to help her not feel that way and she said, "make me a special dessert."  Maybe she was sincere, maybe I got played, I don't know.  But I still felt like a jerk.

Bubby had an event to go to this afternoon, so I came home early and decided the three of us needed a break and we deserved a dinner out together.  Any by dinner out I mean, they eat dinner and I drink a glass of wine.  They were stoked.

It had been a while since the three of us had gone out and it was a delightful time (I say that without even the slightest bit of sarcasm).  Lou had a basket of sweet potato fries and he laughed and made farm animal noises at everyone who walked by.  Norah and I had a really good talk about why Andrew K is such an asshole and what kind of dresses she thinks she would like to wear to kindergarten.  On the way home she asked if every Tuesday could be "special dinner night" and of course I agreed.  Maybe she was sincere, maybe I got played.  Who cares.

When we got home they played out front and Norah was crazy excited when a few of the neighbor girls came over to say 'hi'.  At one point she repeatedly shouted "this is the best day ever."  Don't worry, later on we had a talk about playing it cool.