Sometimes the weekend feels like a letdown at this point in my life because there’s nothing in particular that stands out. In the younger years, before kids, weekends meant staying out until the wee hours, having brunch well past normal brunch times, and just kicking back and relaxing.

With young children there’s no going out until the wee hours – the only one who still does that is George and when he does it’s only because he’s playing a gig and thus working. We don’t go out for brunch because strangely kids are not as into the incredible joys of brunch as adults are, silly kids. As for kicking back and relaxing… well, it’s more about kicking than relaxing. While I would love to spend an afternoon lazily reading my current book on the couch, alas that just doesn’t happen often (ever).

On the other hand it’s not so bad. While I can justify staying out until 3 a.m. just for the sheer hell of it, at least I didn’t have to set the alarm for 6:15 tomorrow morning and although the kids won’t sleep in until a luxurious hour, it’s still better than sunrise.

We don’t go out for brunch but George often makes brunch for us on one of the two days, cooking up eggs, bacon, and toast (I need to put in a request for sausages sometimes I think; bacon is good but sausage is BETTER). The kids do like that, and so do I.

There’s not much relaxing going on but without the time constraints of school and homework we can do anything we feel like – going to the park or into the woods when the weather is good, playing Wii games, watching movies past bedtime, whatever.

So really it’s not that weekends are bad when you’re a parent of young kids (from what I understand, that’s one advantage of teenagers – at least they like to sleep in so there’s that much). It’s just different. And different is pretty good most days.

We kicked off our weekend today. Hayley went straight from school to her grandparents’ house. George and I had Butter Chicken and since I know Breanna’s not keen on that I had her help me make some scrambled eggs with vegetables for her supper. She helped. She cracked her eggs, whisked them with the milk, and then I started scrambling them, letting her finish up. She was so proud she ate both eggs and half the vegetables.

Then George went out and Hayley was still out as well so I gave her a dinosaur bath and then we made popcorn and watched The Little Mermaid*. Hayley arrived home halfway through so she joined us and they both went to bed easily and quickly.

I’m now enjoying some Shiraz and chips and looking forward to what the next two days hold (preferably a little extra sleep for me tomorrow what with the horrendous sleep I’ve been getting lately!).

What are your weekend plans?

*When I suggested it Breanna was all over The Little Mermaid. Lately she’s very into any movie that features a boy and girl, preferably a prince and princess-to-be, and she loves when they kiss. I think I may have my hands full by the tween years, God help me.