Thank God the Weekend Is Over

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that, for parents with young children, weekends aren’t exactly restful: there’s the shopping, the organized activities, the unorganized keeping-them-busy-ness, the deferred errands around the house, and then overall simple running like a maniac to keep the children happy, diverted, and hopefully, fatigued enough to go to sleep at a decent hour.

Napping in a hammock rarely factors into this equation. Not that I’m complaining–I love doing stuff with the kids, and then, of course, there’s the alternative, which is much, much worse.

JP came down with a mid-summer fever on Friday, which meant he was laid up and on forced rest for the weekend, which, over and above the health concerns, is no good for anyone.

Cooped up inside, eyeball to eyeball with each other with no running to cut the boredom–statistically speaking, this is why parents choose boarding school.

He’s better now, and off with his mother, which means I miss him and forgive him for driving me nuts. But sheesh–can’t he get sick on his own time?

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About Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

3 thoughts on “Thank God the Weekend Is Over

  1. Word! As soon as Sasha’s asleep, Jean will tell me she misses the kid, but when she’s up, especially on weekends, it all eyerolling, heavy sighs, and exhaustion.

  2. I’ll trade you a weekend with one suck kid for 3 1/2 hours with 3 little maniacs on a Continental flight to Newark.

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