What a Weekend...You Parents are CRAZY!

Ahhhh....life and that infinite struggle to balance it all. This weekend we had big plans, we were going to go see a friend DJ in the City, have a great homemade dinner, babysit niece on Saturday and go to a Blackstar show.

Somehow, this is how it ended up: we went to the City, woke up Friday hung over, went to great homemade dinner at brother's house and ended up sleeping over brother's house so that it'd be easier to babysit niece on Saturday and drank a little too much wine, woke up hungover (I'm not 22 anymore so this is taking its toll), babysit niece, go hiking with niece to break her away from the Wii, take her to ice cream, brother comes back and I am exhausted. We decide not to go to the Blackstar show that we've been looking forward to for a month because we are utterly exhausted and figure that it's going to be over $100 for balcony seats in Oakland. Brother asks me to babysit niece Sunday and he'll be dropping her off at 8am. That makes the decision for us. We go to Luckys to buy dinner, ask F about getting food for niece tomorrow to which he says, let's just wait until tomorrow. I tell him we're not going to have time but, am too tired to care. We go home to watch B-Girl, which only had one b-girl. Wake up to brother knocking on the door with niece in tow. I had promised niece that we'd go bowling and completely forgot about offering to edit best friend's nursing paper that has been giving her major anxiety for a week. Luckily, it's 8am and the bowling place doesn't open til noon. Make coffee and give niece iPod to play Angry Birds because F is playing the new games she thoughtfully brought him. Check email and reminded about nursing paper. SHIT! Start editing nursing paper and have to remind myself about APA format. Realize time, 11:30am, and ask niece if she'd like lunch. F has been doing laundry and mumbling under his breath that I'm not cleaning the kitchen. He better keep mumbling, I think to myself. Still editing paper. Ask F to make niece lunch- PB&J to which he says we don't have any sandwich bread. Deep breath and figure F will figure out something. F still plays video game and I feel blood boil. Best friend IMs me, finds out about babysitting and apologizes for imposing and tells me I shouldn't be editing paper. Tell her not to worry, it's giving me something to do while they play video games. Make lunch for niece out of leftover rotisserie chicken and tomatoes. Niece asks about tomatoes and I tell her she needs veggies. Back on IM, best friend makes plans to hang out with us after bowling, possible Ikea trip negotiations. I send paper to friend and tell her we're off to bowl. At bowling, we think it's going to be $6 per half hour and she tells us it's $16.98. Great but, we promised niece so we bite the bullet. Lane keeps breaking down. F and niece are acting like fighting siblings. I get glimpse into my future. Deep sigh and pound the ball into the pins. Strike. Order fries. F gets "dead wood" which isn't as funny as it sounds, we want to call help but, he's on a time crunch. The time crunch that will leave him at our house 1 hour and 20 minutes before he has to leave for work. F tries to hurry us. We win and get help, it takes all of 1 minute like I had said before. We have to call her three times. It's getting "late". I tell F to pay the bill while I wait to pay for fries. She is the only waitress. I wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Text best friend, "I'm going to need some wine LOL" because supposed to go to Despicable Me with her later. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait...ress! Pay bill. F shows me bowling total: $59. Have small heart attack. F has major heart attack. This ruins his mood. This will make it the third time today. Tell them to go play some video games while I pay the bill. Two seconds later, they come back. Need card to play games. Card costs $1 and then, you have to put how much money you THINK you'll spend on games on there. We're over it. Go home. Tell niece that we can go swimming to give F a break before he leaves for work. Niece didn't bring suit. Give her old shirt that will cover her. Inflate pool basketball hoop and ball. Get into my suit. Give niece sun block and put some on. Go to pool. Jump in. It feels incredible. Three Persian women are lounging. An old man is snapping pictures. One bigger way-too-tan lady is lounging with her top off. It's a weird start to the condo pool time. Niece and I look at each other with WTF looks but, continue playing. I think, if they take their clothes off, I'm outta here. Have nice time at pool. Play Crazy 8 and beat a 9 year old. So far, this is the highlight of my day. Go home. Get niece's underwear to throw in dryer while she's in bath. Draw bath for niece. Niece in bath, safely...I think. I listen to the door. Sounds good. Do dishes which have piled up for a few days. Check dryer, not done yet. Back to dishes, load dishwasher and start. Clean kitchen. Niece opens door and I get her a towel and then, get her underwear for her. Show her wear lotion is. Water plants that I'm trying to revive. Show niece strawberry saplings. She's hungry. Do you have any chicken? Yes, we still don't have groceries. And...F ate the last of the chicken, leaving the carcass in the fridge. Nice. Dig in pantry and find pasta. Decide to get creative and make sauce. Niece sits down to play offensive video game. Now get how parents let their kids watch violent shows with misogynistic tendencies, tell her to put it on mute, since that's what's offensive. Feel minor victory. Make pasta. Cut veggies. Create miracle dinner. Brother's at the door. Offer him some miracle dinner. Make some for niece and brother gives her hard time. Mediated. Told him it was for all of us and there's plenty. Niece wants only pasta, no sauce. Of course. Feed niece. Brother complains about work. They leave. Quiet home. There's more laundry to do, of course. Now, with dinner, I re-messied up the kitchen. Put in another load of laundry. Do dishes. Eat. Breathe sigh of relief. Collapse on couch. Best friend has a migraine and won't make the movie tonight. Perfectly fine with me. Find a splash of week old chardonnay, don't care and pour myself it. Watch incredibly intense movie- The Horsemen about a father who avenges his daughter's horrific murder. Get on Facebook and put on Bridezillas for brain candy. See friend's updates about last night's show. Feel major regret about not going. F calls, asks if he can bring me anything. I tell him wine and any chocolate he can find. He calls from the store so that I can telepathically see where the exact wine that I want and the exact treats that I want are and direct him to them. I lay back. Start this blog post. Start feeling relaxed. F comes home with wine and chocolate chip cookies. True Blood is on. Watch it and now, I'm blogging and F is playing video games. It feels as if this day has come full circle.

All I can say is....this is only the weekend and I don't have any kids. All you parents out there, working or not, are saints in my eyes. My niece is super chill and way easy to take care of but, I don't know if I want another kid. I already have a 31 year old son LOL For all the smack that I just talked about him, F read the entire thing and was laughing along the way. This is one of the major reasons that I love this man. So, for all "the 22 year old us" plans we had, we ended up with "the 32 year old us" reality.