I woke up this morning with the familiar mild feeling of weekday dread—three articles today, my god, it’s like shoveling sand, sand made of Justin Bieber’s smug mop-haired face and Kim Kardashian’s improbably-shaped ass—and a deeper, panicky sense of doom regarding a project that’s due in, let’s check the calendar, two days, oh fuck oh fuck. On top of that like a nice little layer of shit-frosting, an infusion of regret over my food choices over the weekend. Weeks of eating clean and having goddamned herbal tea instead of cookies at night, and I throw it all away for two days of a pumpkin-muffin-themed Roman gorge-orgy?

I should have worked more during naptimes and at night, I think. I shouldn’t have used a date night as an excuse to go completely off the rails with my diet. I should have vacuumed, I should have done laundry, I should have gone to the gym.

It’s too easy to focus on everything I didn’t do. The sort of weekend that if I were still watercooler-bullshitting with a coworker, I’d dismiss with the flap of a hand. “Oh, you know,” I’d say with a laugh, “ate too much. Lazed around. Not much.”

On Saturday morning I packed a picnic lunch—in an actual picnic basket—and we drove to JB’s office, where we spun in office chairs and sent the boys on crazy giggling missions to leap over cardboard boxes.

I had my first night out with my husband in weeks, maybe months. We ate sushi at our favorite place and watched The Social Network, which we both loved.

We drove out to Alki in the rain and gloom and had lunch overlooking the water, venturing out onto the dock afterwards and pointing out buildings and boats and seagulls.

We cooked a giant breakfast for Sunday night dinner, complete with bacon and jam-covered toast, and we started our meal with our version of grace: everyone with two thumbs upraised, a group shout of “Good food, good meat, good grief, let’s eat! Teaaaaaaaam Sharps!” and a clap at the end.

Riley sat on the counter in order to supervise the assembly of pumpkin-chocolate muffins, both of us stealing bites of chocolate chips.

We bundled up on Sunday night and walked around a nearby park, ducking our heads against the rain, teaching the boys how to stuff their hands in their pockets to keep them warm. “Keep ’em against your balls,” advised JB.

JB got a fire going in the wood stove and we all curled up together on the couch with the lights off, watching the dancing flames and telling ghost stories.

Before bed, we played “Roly Poly” in the living room, the kids hurling themselves in running summersaults onto sofa cushions laid out on the floor.

I napped on Saturday—so delicious!—and on Sunday I finished an amazing, can’t-put-it-down book.

I don’t know why it isn’t easier to think of all that stuff, instead.

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Dylan has an uncanny resemblance to the dramatic chipmunk.

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