“Mommy, can you get me a tiny cup of water?”  “Can you do Mommy a favor and get one yourself?  Mommy is busy (…ahem, lazy) right now.”  After 13 minutes of quiet my pals marched downstairs with wet pj’s, hair and some shit eating grins on their faces.  I decided to go up to their bathroom and check things out.

The water was running, the floor was sopping wet and it took me 2 bath towels to soak up the mess.  It also appeared they were constructing pyramids out of the cups and hosing each other down.  This brings me to the question, was it worth it?  Were those 13 minutes where I sat on the couch watching the news with a piping hot cup of coffee loaded with French Vanilla creamer worth it?  It was quiet.  No one was asking me to get them anything and the best part – there was no fighting.  So yes, it was worth it.

You know those times when the kids are in the other room and they are being way to quiet to be behaving?  You know that whatever is going on in there is not going to be good but you take your sweet ass time going in there to put off the inevitable.  Like the time I walked into their bedroom to find L.A. with a black sharpie redecorating everything form the walls to the floor to the white dressers….to his sister.  I was too mad to even consider whipping out the camera but as my husband said, “you had to know something bad was happening because they were quiet WAY too long.”  He was right but I think I might have had a glass of wine in peace during that episode so it is still up for debate whether it was worth it or not.  For the record, hair spray gets sharpie (yes, the permanent kind) off of almost anything.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no one on this earth that I would rather spend time with than my kids but sometimes a tiny break is amazing.  The word “Amazing”  sometimes even takes on new meaning when it pertains to this subject.   The other day I went to the bathroom by myself and it was amazing.  No one fought over who was going to flush my pee down the toilet.  It was amazing.  I pushed the lever on the toilet, stood back and smiled.  I did it.  Alone.  It was awesome – amazingly awesome.