Now that so many universities are on semesters, there is this sweet little two day bonus, called Fall Break. It’s actually more like three school days, and plus the weekend — so it’s almost like a mini-week of delicious one-on-one time with my oldest.
Wednesday morning, I put fresh sheets on his bed, started cooking a roast — oh, and the night before, in anticipation of all the good food I planned to be pumping him with, I started cooking chicken broth in the crock pot. This would ensure every meal would be infused with bone broth.
He arrived home early Wednesday afternoon, arms laden with smelly laundry, and books The school doesn’t officially call it a “break.” They’re “reading days.”
Rosie went nuts — she was actually moaning, and so overcome with joy, that I don’t think her poor little heart could contain the overwhelming emotion. She was crying; tearless dog tears.
He teased his brothers, tickled them and touched them more than I’ve ever seen before — and I thought about how much he must miss this kind of one-on-one contact. Then, he teased his brothers that he gets to sleep in tomorrow morning, while they have to go to school.
We lingered over breakfasts on Thursday and Friday and we talked about everything under the sun… he’s rowing with the crew team at college!!! He said, “waking up at 5:30 isn’t so hard, because he knows he’s going rowing.” I incorporated that broth into as many things as I could — to cook the potatoes, the pasta, the chili, the black beans for his burritos…
On Friday, I had business meetings, so I wasn’t able to spend much time with him… so we grabbed the youngest, and the oldest (all that was home) and we took them to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. And that was before I bought the youngest one new shoes at Macy’s… his shoes were literally falling off of his feet — he wore them to sixth grade camp, and they got quite a bit of damage. Can I just say, I was a bit unprepared at the joy I would feel as I watched him wear those brand new shoes out of the store. My heart felt like Rosie’s.
The service at the Cheesecake Factory was slow — we waited about 90 minutes to get our food. Did you hear that? I had another 90 free minutes of uninterrupted time with the oldest and the baby… “i was in cabin Number 1 at camp last week. Do you remember what you were in?!”
“What are the names of the cabins?”
“1,2,3,4…”
“Oh yeah. Now you’ve triggered my memory. It must have been 3.”
We ordered cheesecake for the other brothers, to-go, and we got the flavors all wrong… but we worked it out by sharing.
So again, on Friday night, we all slept together under the same roof.. and I kept pinching myself that this was real.
The weekend was crazy… I called him downstairs to help me iron, sort and fold the mountain of laundry, and there was more clothes shopping to do, he needed warm-up clothes and gear. Again, that made me happier than I expected, but not as happy as replacing those tired, worn shoes. On Sunday, there was the mad rush at the grocery store to stock pile him with food before he went back…. and then … it was Monday already.